The Hideous RuffleTuffleback
by Cke1st
Summary: Ruffnut and Tuffnut try to find out in advance what awaits them in Dragon Training. Instead, their lives get turned around in the worst way imaginable. There's a very good chance they won't even survive the experience. Rated T to be safe; the language is all K.
1. Chapter 1

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 1_

 _A/N  
Ruffnut and Tuffnut try to find out in advance what awaits them in Dragon Training. Instead, their lives get turned around in the worst way imaginable. There's a very good chance they won't even survive the experience. Rated T to be safe; the language is all K._

 _Disclaimer: Although this fic is about the twins, both Hiccup and Toothless will play important roles in the middle of the story. I know a bunch of you are going to ask this, because I always get questions like that whenever I write a story that isn't Hiccup-and-Toothless-centric. Now, let me tell you a story.  
_

 **o**

"I can't sleep."

Ruffnut groaned and covered her head with her pillow. Her brother wouldn't give it a rest. "I said, I can't sleep."

"Thanks to you, neither can I," she grumbled. "What's your problem?"

"Are you kidding?" he exclaimed as he sat up in the lower bunk. "Dragon Training starts tomorrow! We're going to fight real dragons for the first time! Aren't you excited, or nervous, or scared?"

"No, I'm just tired," she sighed. "I'll deal with all that other stuff tomorrow. If you'll let me!"

"Why? You're already awake!" She heard him putting on his boots. "What do you say we sneak down to the training ring?"

"Give me one good reason why I ought to do that," she mumbled.

"I dare you!" he shot back. When she didn't reply, he added, "I double-dare you!" She still didn't answer. "What are you, some kind of wimpy wuss?"

That did it. She jumped out of the top bunk, aiming her feet at the spot where he'd be standing. He was so predictable! They went down in a heap, with him on the floor and her knees on his ribcage. " _Now_ who's the wimpy wuss?" she smirked.

He took a careful breath to make sure none of his ribs were broken, then smiled that irritating smile of his. "Since you're up and out of bed, you might as well go to the training ring with me. We'll be the first ones there!"

"Will that make any difference?" she muttered as she slipped her feet into her boots.

"Hey, if I want to beat Astrid and Snotlout, I'll take any advantage I can get," Tuffnut answered. "Maybe Gobber did something tricky with the place, and we can check it out and get familiar with it before he turns the dragon loose."

"I guess I've got nothing better to do," she sighed. Brother and sister sneaked out of the house, through the dark, silent village to the even darker training ring. They looked down through the bars to the stone walls and floor. Five stout doors were set in the wall, concealing five stone chambers that held five sleeping dragons. In a few hours, they would be doing their best to kill one of those dragons, or at least beat it senseless. Three of their friends would be doing the same thing; it was Ruff and Tuff's job to do it better.

It wasn't just about prestige or fame. Their reputation in the village was, to put it mildly, dismal. If they didn't find something to be good at, and find it soon, their chances of finding a decent marriage partner would be lower than a Terrible Terror's belly. Their parents would marry them off to the first ignorant fools they could find, and that wouldn't end well for anyone. But if one of them could win in Dragon Training, that would change everything! Their parents could hold out for a decently wealthy girl for him, or a guy for her, and their lives would be _so_ much better. It's not like they _wanted_ to get married; they didn't. But in a small Viking village, _everybody_ got married. The tribe needed all the babies it could get. Personal feelings didn't matter; it was all about duty and obligation. Ruff and Tuff hated concepts like those, but they knew there was no escape. The best they could do was win in Dragon Training to make themselves more marriageable.

Unfortunately, only one of them could win.

"What kinds of dragons do you think are in there?" Tuff asked.

Ruff thought for a moment. She was the more thoughtful of the pair, by a very small margin. "Well, we know they captured a Gronckle three weeks ago, and we know there's a Monstrous Nightmare for the winner to kill. That leaves…" She counted on her fingers. "…three that we don't know about yet."

"Three mystery dragons!" Tuff exclaimed. "I don't like surprises. I want to know what they are."

"Yeah, right," Ruff muttered. "How are you going to do that – open the doors and look at them?"

"Sure, why not?" he smiled.

"Why not? How about 'those are _dragons_ down there'?" she snarled. "We didn't bring weapons, or shields, or anything! What if they wake up?"

"What are the chances of that happening?" he smiled confidently. "Come on! I double-dog-dare you!"

"You can't go to double-dog-dares when you haven't even single-dared me yet!" she sputtered. "Don't you know anything?"

"I know I want to see those dragons before I have to fight them," he retorted. "We'll be really, really quiet, okay? We'll open each door, take a quick look, and shut it again. Nobody will ever know we were here!" She hesitated; he saw her wavering. "It'll be fun, crazy, and... _dangerous!_ " he enticed her. He always knew how to push her buttons.

"Sometimes I hate you," she growled as she helped him open the portcullis and creep into the darkened training ring.

"Which door should we open first?" she whispered. They all looked the same – dark and foreboding.

He pointed at each door as he counted,

"Eenie, meenie, meinie, moe,  
"Catch a Viking by the toe!  
"If he hollers with no class,  
"I can kick him in the –"

"Just open the door, okay?" she interrupted. His finger had come to rest pointing at the leftmost door, which was the one she would have chosen anyway. He shrugged and slowly pulled the door's locking lever. He eased one of the doors open about three inches…

…and then the hinges creaked noisily. They froze, then threw themselves at the door to shut it again. But something was pushing the door from the inside now, and it was a lot stronger than they were. It gave a powerful shove and the doors flew wide open, sending both of them sailing halfway across the training ring. They scrambled to their feet and stared in horror at what they had unleashed.

It was big, angry, and terrifying. Two toothy heads, each bigger than Ruff's body, hissed and glanced all around from atop two weaving snake-like necks. The green-and-red body sported two broad wings and four short, stumpy legs. Two long tails lashed from side to side as the monster stalked out of its prison.

"I think it's a Hideous Zippleback," Tuff whispered.

"No kidding, Sherlock!" Ruff burst out. "Now that it's loose, how are we supposed to put it back?"

"I say we run for it, and let Gobber deal with it in the morning," Tuff quavered.

"That sounds like a plan," she nodded. They both turned for the exit, but they never made it. They were suddenly surrounded by a sickly-green gas cloud, they heard a sparking sound, and then a massive explosion hurled them into the air. The dual impact – first with the roof bars, then with the stone floor – knocked them both senseless.

When they woke up, they were alone in the ring. The creature had obviously escaped through the entryway, which they'd left wide open. Ruff saw her brother stirring and groaned, "That might have been a lot more fun if I'd known I was going to be alive at the end." She sat up, tried to stand, and winced in pain. "Ow! I think that thing bit me!" She clutched her left leg, and sure enough, there was a curved row of tooth marks on her boot.

"Did it bite anything off?" he asked. "We're lucky we – OW!" He grabbed his left shoulder. "Ohh, I am hurt! I am very much hurt!" They checked each other out. Both of them had definitely been bitten by something with sharp, pointy teeth. But the tooth marks were pinpricks, mere flesh wounds.

"I don't get it," Ruff said as she pulled her boot back on. "That thing could have bitten my head off! Why did it give me such a wimpy little wound? No mauling, no serious burns… I probably won't even get a scar out of it! What good is that?"

"Maybe it's just as well," Tuff said slowly. "When I get my scar, I want to get it while I'm fighting, not while I'm out cold! That dragon cheated." He glanced at the dragon holding-cell doors. "Maybe we should try another one."

Ruff slapped her hand on his shoulder, which made him wince – she'd inadvertently slapped the shoulder he'd been bitten on. "Tuffnut, don't even think it! I have had enough of dragons for one night. I'm going home. If you want to open another door, you can do it by yourself."

"Hey! I can't do this without you," he protested.

"Exactly! So what does that tell you?" she challenged him.

"Uhhh… you're going to be a typical girl and change your mind, so we can open another – OW!" She'd removed her helmet and whacked him on the head with it.

"Tuff, there's 'crazy' and then there's just plain 'stupid.' I'd fight a dragon with you if we had our spears and our shields, but all we've got is our empty hands and our empty heads! I don't want to die tonight, and I don't want to see you die, either. Let's go home and try to get some sleep, okay?"

"Fine," he grumped after a second. They closed the open dragon-cell door, pulled the portcullis down as they left, and made their way home in the darkness. Back in their room, they kicked off their boots, took turns rubbing ointment on each other's bite wounds, and tried to sleep. They failed. Their minuscule wounds were quite sore, and they were too wound up from their brush with a dragon tonight.

They should have been exhausted the next morning, but they were running on pure adrenaline now. Today was the first day of Dragon Training! They'd been chosen to take their place in the village as Viking warriors, learning to fight their most implacable enemies. They arrived at the training ring early, but Astrid, Snotlout, and Fishlegs were already there. All they needed now was a training master, and Gobber arrived on schedule. "Welcome to Dragon Training!" he announced formally as he raised the portcullis. Their great adventure was beginning! Hiccup, the chief's scrawny son, joined them unannounced as they were entering, but even his ill-starred presence couldn't dampen the twins' enthusiasm.

As they strode into the ring, boasting about the injuries they hoped to receive, Ruff tried to hide the fact that she was limping. Tuff had no difficulty waving his spear around with his right arm, but when it came time to wear a shield on his left arm, that would be a different story. He never got the chance to hide his own injury, though. He and Ruff got into a fight over who would use the best shield, and before they could settle it, the Gronckle that was their first adversary had fireballed the shield and put both of them out of the "game." They slunk out of the ring and watched the fat dragon take out Fishlegs and Snotlout, then almost kill Hiccup. It looked like Astrid might be the one to beat. She was the only one who never got shot at.

Once the old smith had wrangled the Gronckle back into its cell and slammed the door, he turned to his class of shaken students. "By the bye, would any of ye know anythin' about how my Hideous Zippleback got away?" They all shook their heads "no."

"That's strange," he said, scratching his chin. "The door and th' gates were closed, so it dinna break out. Somebody let it go." He whirled and pointed at Tuffnut with his hook-hand. "Are ye _sure_ ye know nothin' about this?"

Tuff almost panicked. How did Gobber know? "I didn't see any dragon getting out of here," he blurted out. Ironically, that statement was the truth.

"Huh. How am I supposed to teach ye how to fight Zipplebacks if we haven't got one? I guess we'll have to catch another one when the lizards raid us again. Fine, ye're dismissed until tomorrow." The teens scattered to their homes. They all had chores to do except Hiccup, who was serving an apprenticeship to the smith and had a whole day's worth of work ahead of him. Ruff and Tuff were kept busy hauling water, cutting and stacking firewood, helping their mother in the kitchen, and doing all the other things young Vikings do. It was quite painful because of their injuries, but they couldn't say anything about them because it would be obvious that the wounds came from a dragon, and that would raise a host of questions that they didn't want to answer.

After everyone else had gone to sleep, the twins examined each other's wounds by lantern light. "It doesn't look infected," Ruff commented. "I thought Zipplebacks had venom or something."

"That's what Fishlegs said," Tuff noted. "But then, he said a lot of stuff that didn't make any sense."

"All those numbers sure didn't help him in the ring," his sister nodded. "I think we got lucky with these bites. They'll be all better in two days, and no one will ever know what we did."

"I hope not," Tuff agreed. They kicked off their boots, blew out the lantern, and went to bed. Both of them slept very restlessly that night. They repeatedly dreamed that their sibling was glued to them permanently, and they couldn't do anything without the other. It was awful! They were thankful to wake up and get their day started the next morning; it meant no more dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 2_

Their next Dragon Training opponent was a Deadly Nadder. This one was a much tougher opponent than the Gronckle; it could attack by flinging poisonous tail spines as well as by breathing fire, and its bite also looked dangerous. The teens scattered through the flimsy wooden maze that Gobber had created, looking for trouble so they could boldly overcome it (they hoped). Ruff and Tuff stayed together, the way they always did. They turned a corner – and found themselves face-to-face with the Nadder! But they were right in front of it, just under its chin, and it couldn't see them.

As they darted from side to side to stay in its blind spot, Ruff's nose was suddenly assaulted by a foul aroma. It took her a moment to realize where it came from. It was her brother. "Do you ever bathe?"

"Yeah, once a week, whether I need it or not," Tuff shot back. "You got a problem with that?"

"Maybe that dragon can't see you, but it can sure smell you!" she burst out.

"If you don't like it, just get your own blind spot!"

"How about I give _you_ one?" Their argument was broken up by a blast of dragon fire. They broke and ran in a panic, shooting right past Hiccup, who had chosen this moment of all moments to ask Gobber some nonsensical questions about Night Furies. The next thing they knew, the Nadder was knocking the wooden labyrinth flat as it pursued Astrid, who finally turned to fight after getting tangled up with Hiccup. She dealt the lizard a hard blow that took all the fight out of it, and the training session was over.

As they walked home afterward, Tuff turned to his sister. "Why did you ask if I ever bathe? You're around me all the time! You know what I smell like."

Ruff thought before she answered. "I don't know. You don't smell any different than usual. It just hit me a lot harder than usual. It's like my nose got ten times more sensitive, all of a sudden. It was weird."

They had barely lay down to sleep that night when Ruff sat upright. She tried to sneak out of bed, but it's hard to be sneaky when you're on the top bunk and your brother is on the bottom. "Ruff, where are you going?"

"I need to step outside," she gasped. "I don't feel so good."

"Me, neither, all of a sudden," he said weakly, clutching his stomach. "I guess we do everything together, even get sick."

"You're such a copycat," she muttered, but her heart wasn't in it. They got a few feet away from the house and knelt on the ground... but they didn't lose their supper.

No, it was much, much worse than that.

She suddenly felt very dizzy. She slumped over to her left, which happened to be the direction her brother was kneeling. He slumped over at the same time. A sudden blinding light in her eyes kept her from seeing anything for several seconds; a roaring in her ears nearly deafened her. Then she opened her eyes, shook her head, blinked hard...

...and stared straight into the eyes of a Hideous Zippleback.

She screamed and tried to pull away. But her scream sounded wrong, and her body wouldn't cooperate. She glanced down at herself. That was when she saw the green-and-red scaly body that her long, snake-like neck was attached to. The other head of the Zippleback was attached to the same body. That was when she _really_ screamed! So did the dragon's other head!

"Get me out of here!" she begged.

"No, get _me_ out of here!" the other head exclaimed. It shouted with a dragon's voice, yet somehow, it sounded like...

"Tuff?"

"Ruff? Is that you?"

"It's supposed to be me, but I don't sound like me," she said.

"You don't look like you, either."

"You should talk! Look at you! You're... you're hideous!"

"You're no prize-winner, either, Ruff. What are we going to do?"

"You mean, about us being stuck to the same body?"

"No, I mean about us being a dragon now! If anybody sees us, they'll kill us!"

"Oh. Yeah. I guess we need to hide," she decided.

"Sounds good. Where do we go?"

"Uhhh... I don't know. Someplace where there aren't any Vikings."

"Do you know any places like that? I don't."

Ruff thought hard. "Even if I knew a place like that, we probably can't get there."

"Why not?" her brother demanded. "We have wings now! We can fly anywhere we want to! This could be awesome!"

"Yeah, so we have wings. Do you know how to fly? I don't."

"How hard can it be?" Tuff asked. "Those stupid dragons can do it, so why can't we?"

"Uhh, Tuff... don't look now, but we _are_ a stupid dragon. And I think they've been practicing flying for a lot longer than we have."

"Well, then, uhh... maybe we should practice, too." His dragony mouth turned up in a grin that was somehow familiar-looking. "I bet it'll be fun!"

"Yeah, sure, just like going to the training ring the other night was fun," Ruff sighed. "So, what do we do?"

"Flap our wings, dummy! Like this!" Tuff concentrated. Nothing happened.

"Honestly, can't you do anything right? You just flap! Watch!" She focused on making the wings go up and down. Nothing happened.

"See? It's not so easy," Tuff gloated.

"Are you trying to control them at the same time as I am?" she demanded.

"Yeah, what about it?" he asked.

"Well, quit it! Just let me try it." After a few seconds, their wings came down, then up, then down. "Now we're getting somewhere!" she exclaimed.

"No, we aren't," Tuff retorted. "We're making a nice breeze, but we're still on the ground. Maybe we should watch the dragons, the next time they come to Berk, and see how they do it."

"Idiot!" Ruff burst out. "If we're around the next time the dragons come to Berk, our friends will think _we're_ a dragon and they'll kill us!"

"Oh. Yeah. So... what should we do?"

""Maybe we can hide in the Lost Caverns," she suggested.

"Yeah, I think we can fit in there," he agreed, "but what will we do when we get hungry?"

"Well, maybe we could..." Whatever she was about to say, she never finished it. The dizziness and the blinding light and the roaring in the ears came back... and when it passed, they were both lying on the ground about a foot away from each other.

Tuffnut sat up and shook his head vigorously. "Ruff, I will take all your chores for a week if you can convince me that that was just a really, really bad dream."

"If you mean us turning into a dragon, I'm still hoping it _was_ a dream," she replied as she tried to stand. Then she looked down and said, "Nope." They could plainly see the fresh footprints of a Hideous Zippleback in the dirt.

"Well, at least we got better," Tuff said as he stood and dusted off his clothes.

"Yeah," she nodded. "But what made it happen?"

"How should I know? I'm not a dragon expert," he demanded. "Who do I look like, Gobber the Belch?"

"No, but maybe we should ask him in the morning. He knows everything about dragons."

"Maybe." He pulled some dry weeds out of his hair. "Right now, I just want to get some sleep. I feel like somebody dropped a longship on me." For once, the twins agreed on something.


	3. Chapter 3

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 3_

They awoke early next morning, in spite of their exhaustion. The smell of breakfast cooking over the fire got them moving. They devoured more than their usual share, which surprised their mother; then they each took two empty buckets and set out for the town well.

"You know what's really weird?" Tuff began.

" _You_ are," Ruff shot back without hesitation.

"No, I mean _really_ weird. I could smell the oatmeal through our closed bedroom door. My nose was never that sensitive before!"

"Yeah," she nodded slowly. "I smelled it, too. It was like yesterday in the training ring, with your body odor. All of a sudden, I can smell way better than I ever used to! I don't get it."

"Do you think..." He paused before he let himself say what was on his mind. "Do you think it's because we turned into a dragon last night? I mean, dragons have really big nostrils. Maybe we can smell better because...?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I don't think I want to know."

He glanced toward the forge; they could hear the sound of a hammer beating on something solid. "Maybe we should ask Gobber. He knows a lot about dragons and stuff."

"Maybe we should ask Fishlegs about it, instead of Gobber," Ruff thought out loud. "If we go to Gobber, he's probably going to ask all kinds of questions, and he'll figure out it was us who let the Zippleback out."

"What if Fishlegs asks questions?" Tuff wanted to know.

"He wouldn't do that. He's too busy knowing all the answers," Ruff replied confidently. "And if he _does_ get too curious, I'll just remind him about the time he peeped in the women's bath house when we were 12, and tell him what Astrid would do to him if she found out about it." She hid a snicker behind her hand. "Fishlegs won't give us any trouble!"

They found him milking his family goat; the pail was about half full, and it didn't look like he was going to get much farther than that. "Hey, Fishlegs, old buddy, old pal, how are you doing?" Tuff began as they sidled up to him, one on each side of him.

"Uhh, you guys are making me nervous already," Fishlegs stammered.

"Hey, it's okay," Ruff reassured him. "We just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about…" She whispered in his ear, "… _dragons!"_ She now had his full attention.

"Ooh! Ask away! I love talking about dragons!" he burst out.

"Yeah, we know," Tuff muttered.

"Our first question is about Zipplebacks," Ruff began. She meant to get a bit more specific than that, but Fishlegs was already on a roll.

"Hideous Zippleback. Fear class, but it may be moved to the Mystery class," he rambled. "Plus-11 stealth times 2. Razor-sharp serrated teeth that inject venom for pre-digestion. Prefers ambush attacks, crushing its victims –"

"Can you stop that?!" Tuff demanded.

"We just want to know if they do anything… weird… to people," Ruff said.

Fishlegs looked thoughtful. "Well, a couple of raids ago, one of them grabbed both of a guy's feet, one with each head, and pulled them apart until –"

"I did _not_ need to be reminded of that!" Tuff exclaimed in disgust. Ruff threw up in her mouth a little.

"Fishlegs, what I mean, is, do they ever bite people and turn them into dragons?"

"Turn people into dragons?" Fishlegs mused. "Night Furies do it all the time in fan fiction, but if someone said it happened in real life, I'd ask him how much mead he'd been drinking. When a dragon bites you, it's either so he can kill you or eat you. Or both." He paused. "But the Book of Dragons says there have been some strange results from Zippleback bites. It doesn't say what they are, though. Why do you ask?"

Before Tuff could respond, Ruff said, "We both had a weird dream about that, and we were just curious."

"Eww!" It was Fishlegs' turn to be disgusted. "I'm glad I'm not in _your_ dreams!"

"Me, too," the twins said in unison.

That went right over Fishlegs' head. "Anyway, if you want to know more about the weird stuff that Zipplebacks do, you should talk to Gobber. He knows stuff about dragons that other people don't know, stuff about dragons that most people don't _want_ to know, and stuff about dragons that isn't even true."

"Thanks, Fishlegs, you've been a big help." The twins walked away, and waited until they were well out of earshot before turning to each other.

"Who were you kidding?" Tuff burst out. "He was no help at all!"

"He gave us a definite 'maybe,' and that's not the same as saying it _couldn't_ happen," she retorted.

"But we still have to talk to Gobber," he shot back. "What are we supposed to tell him?"

"I don't know," she said slowly, "but I do know one thing. I'd rather confess everything to Gobber, and take whatever punishment he's got for us, than turn into a dragon again."

"But what if he punishes us, but he can't help us, and we turn into a dragon again anyway? We'd go through all that for nothing!"

"Okay," she said after a moment. "We'll wait and see. If our bites get better, and we never turn into a dragon again, then we'll never tell anybody about it. We'll just add it to our list of secrets. But if it happens to us again, then we go and see Gobber. Deal?" He nodded; they spat and shook on it.

There was no battle in Dragon Training today. "I'd meant to teach ye all about teamwork today," Gobber explained, "but me two-headed teachin' assistant flew the coop somehow, so I canna teach the lesson. Instead, I'll give ye all yer first lesson in throwin' bolas." He pulled one out of his belt and twirled it over his head for a moment. "This is how ye bring down a flyin' dragon! If he canna flap 'is wings, he canna fly, and if he canna fly..." He drew his fingers across his throat and made a rending noise.

He casually tossed one bola to each teen; Hiccup somehow got tangled up in his weapon when he was merely trying to catch it. Then the smith pointed to a sawhorse on the other side of the ring. He'd added a crudely shaped and painted wooden dragon's head to one end, and an even cruder tail to the other. "That's yer target. Stand behind that line, an' take turns throwin' yer weapon at th' dragon."

"Why can't I throw my axe at it?" Astrid wanted to know.

"Th' idea is to get yer dragon tangled up so he canna move or fly," Gobber explained. "Once he's helpless, then yer axe will do ye some good. If ye just throw it at 'im in mid-air, it's liable to bounce off those tough belly scales. Dragons are tough, in case ye haven't noticed."

"That target is kind of small, compared to a real dragon," Snotlout fussed. "Can we hit it from that far away?"

"If ye can hit a small target, then ye can hit a big one." Gobber sounded like he'd heard that complaint too many times. "Snotlout, since yer such an expert on hittin' targets, ye go first."

"Okay," the burly teen said doubtfully, then regained his confidence. As he whirled the bola over his head, he announced, "Astrid, that target is a Monstrous Nightmare, and I'm about to save your life!" She rolled her eyes and said nothing. He wound up and released his bola. It spun across the training-ring floor, perfectly aimed, but it flew three feet above the target and smacked into the wall.

"Sorry 'bout that, Astrid, but ye just died, thanks to Snotlout," Gobber said helpfully. "Fishlegs, yer next." Fishlegs wound up hesitantly, and let it go hesitantly. His bola hit the ground five feet short of the target and wrapped itself around the sawhorse's legs. The twins laughed at him.

"Nay, that wasn't such a bad shot," Gobber corrected them. "If ye can snarl up a dragon's legs so he canna walk an' canna carry prey, yer doin' well. Of course, that shot isn't gonna work if the ground isn't flat an' smooth, an' it's no good if the dragon is in the air, so it's not much use in real-life dragon-fightin'. Tuffnut, show us what ye've got!"

"This is easy!" he boasted as he wound up. "It's just like the time I threw some thorn-vines at my sister and got them tangled up in her hair!"

" _You_ did that to me?" she exploded. "You fish-faced, troll-kissing _jerk!_ " She leaped at him and tackled him, his bola went up and came down, and when the dust settled, they were tied together back to back and could not escape.

"Not as easy as it looks, is it?" Gobber half-grinned. "Hiccup? Show us what _you've_ got." Snotlout made a great show of ducking and hiding as Hiccup slowly got the bola up to a decent speed and let it go… straight at Gobber. The old smith ducked; the ropes snared the tall horns of his helmet and knocked it off. Hiccup cringed in embarrassment.

"Th' last time I checked, I wasn't a dragon, Hiccup," Gobber said drily as he recovered his helmet. "But if I was, then it would've been a good shot. Astrid, show us how it's done."

"Finally!" she burst out. She spun her bola over her head three times and let it go. It whirled across the arena and wrapped itself around the phony-looking dragon neck.

"A perfect shot!" Gobber exclaimed. "If that dragon had wings, you'd have tangled 'em nicely. Well done, Astrid."

Snotlout began chanting, "Astrid is a teacher's pet! Astrid is a teacher's pet!" Tuff joined in, but broke it off when his sister elbowed him in the ribs from behind. It took Gobber and Fishlegs five solid minutes to untie and untangle them, mostly because the twins wouldn't stop struggling.

"Right, now ye'll all try it again," Gobber announced. By the end of their fifth round of target practice, Astrid was five for five, and all of them had hit the target at least once, except Hiccup, whose aim could not have been wilder if he'd been trying to throw at random. Gobber decided they'd learned their lesson for today, and he didn't want to have to dodge another errant Hiccup shot. "There's no use in beatin' a dead sawhorse. Gather yer weapons and go do yer chores. I'll see ye tomorrow." The six budding dragon-fighters left the arena with varying degrees of pride and shame.

The twins went to bed that night tired, but nervous. Was tonight going to be a repeat of last night? They tossed and turned, alert for the slightest tinge of pain in their stomachs that might mean they were about to turn Hideous again. It didn't happen. But the fear that it _would_ happen robbed them of another good night's sleep. Even the smell of breakfast wasn't enough to get them out of bed in the morning. Their mother threatened to run a trail of bacon crumbs from their room to the nearest Terrible Terror nest; when she actually dropped some crumbs in their doorway, that finally got them moving.


	4. Chapter 4

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 4_

They got through that day in reasonably normal fashion, finishing their chores and doing nothing remotely reptilian. Their main thought throughout the day was that the weird event of two nights ago was just one of those crazy things that happened to them now and then, and it was over, and it wouldn't happen again. They didn't voice that thought to each other, but they were both thinking it, right up until the midnight moment when Ruff got out of bed and staggered toward the door.

"Where are you going?" her brother asked weakly.

"I don't feel so good," she moaned.

"Is it just an 'I ate something bad' feeling, or is it a 'like two nights ago' feeling?" he pressed her as he reached for his boots.

"The second one."

"Did I mention I wanted only good news?" he said as he joined her in heading for the exit. "You're supposed to tell me it's just Mom's rancid cooking, and we'll both be fine once we get it out of our... oh, man, that hurts! That very much hurts!" He barely made it out the door before he doubled over and fell to his knees. She held out a little longer, and tried to put some distance between them.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Maybe, if we aren't so close together, we can't turn into a dragon," she gasped as she sank to her knees. "I mean, if it takes both of us to make one Zippleback..." She couldn't finish; she felt too dizzy to take another step. A few moments later... she was staring at half of a Zippleback, and she knew she was the other half. They both cried out in surprise, even though they knew both of them were looking at their twin.

"Now what do we do?" Tuff asked after a second.

"I don't know," she hissed with a shake of her head. "I haven't had much practice at being a dragon."

"Duh! You _aren't_ a dragon!" her brother snapped back.

"Well, I'm pretty sure I look like one," she retorted, "because _you_ look like one, and I'm part of the same dragon you are! And you sound like a dragon, and you smell like a dragon – _yecch!_ Your breath is even worse than usual! How did you _do_ that?"

"You should talk! You're the one that will have the green gas coming out of your mouth!" Tuff shot back. "Talk about bad breath!"

"Well, I never did that, so you can't talk," Ruff answered. "I don't even know _how_ to do that! I bet you can't make your mouth spark, either."

Tuff considered that for a moment. "When you start a fire, you strike your flint against steel to make sparks. So if I'm going to make sparks, I have to strike something against something else. Maybe all I have to do is hit my teeth together!" He tried it. "Ow! No, that didn't work."

"My brother is seriously trying to make sparks with his mouth?" Ruff shook her head. "Can you imagine what Snotlout would say if he knew about this?"

"He'd probably try to kill us," Tuff answered. That ended the conversation for a few seconds.

"Tuff, what are we going to do? So far, we're turning into a dragon at night, when no one can see us, but what if we turned into a dragon in the daytime?"

Tuff considered that. "Hey, what if we turned into a dragon in the middle of Dragon Training? They wouldn't know who to fight! That could be totally cool!"

"Tuff, do you think Astrid coming at you with her axe would be totally cool?"

"Oh. Yeah. Maybe not. Maybe you could breathe some green gas and scare her off."

"Tuffnut, I don't know how! I don't even know how to learn how! Who's going to teach me – _you?"_

"Maybe another dragon would show us how."

Ruff rolled her eyes; it was a familiar gesture to her brother, even though her head was green and reptilian now. "Seriously? What are we supposed to do – just walk into the training ring, open one of the doors, and say, 'Hi, nice dragon. We don't know what we're doing. Can you show us how to breathe gas and spark it?' Those other dragons don't even _have_ gas! They're fire-breathers!"

"I bet they'd have some gas if we fed them beans!" Tuff said, and giggled at the thought. Ruff rolled her eyes again.

"Idiot! Even if they knew how, there's two big problems with your stupid idea. One, they'd attack us if they saw us, and two, dragons can't talk!"

"Hmm." Somehow, Tuff's dragon face managed to look thoughtful. "Would they attack us if they thought we were just another dragon?"

Ruff considered that. "Maybe, and maybe not. I don't know."

Tuff pondered some more. "And who says dragons can't talk? We're talking, and we're a dragon, right?"

"No, we're people who got turned _into_ a dragon," his sister retorted. "We aren't a _real_ dragon! It's different. I'm sure the real dragons can tell the difference, too."

"Okay, if you don't like _my_ plan, then what's _your_ plan?" Tuff demanded.

"We wait until this dragon thing wears off, like it did last time," she answered after a moment. "Then we go back to normal."

"Until we turn into a dragon again, and then we'll still need a plan to deal with it," Tuff replied smugly, pleased that he'd actually proven her wrong for a change. "This dragon thing probably isn't going to just wear off and go away. We've been a dragon tonight for longer than we did last time. What if it keeps getting worse every time, until we're a dragon all the time and never go back to being people?"

"I don't want to think about that," she said.

"Well, we need to do _something!"_ he went on. "What if our friends catch us like this? We don't know how to fight, or fly, or anything! They'd kill us! We have to do something to learn how to protect ourselves! Only a dragon can help us be a better dragon."

"Tuff, the last time I sneaked into the training ring with you, it was the biggest mistake of my life! Now you want me to do it again?"

"Why not?" he demanded.

She thought about it.

"I guess we don't have much to lose," she finally nodded. "I mean, they can't turn us into dragons again, right?" They turned toward the training ring... and fell flat on their faces.

"What just happened?" he asked, slightly stunned from the force of his head hitting the ground.

"I tried to walk, and it didn't work," she answered, a bit groggily.

"What do you mean, _you_ tried to walk?" he demanded. "I'm the one who was trying to walk! Just like this!" They struggled to their feet, and then fell down again. "Quit that!" he ordered.

"Quit what?"

"Quit trying to control our legs! I'll do the walking here," he ordered.

"Says who?"

"Says me!" Again they tried to stand, and again it didn't work.

"I guess only one of us can do the walking at a time," she said. "I'll tell you what. I'll start us walking, and as soon as I know what I'm doing, I'll let you take a turn. Deal?"

"How come you get to go first?" he asked suspiciously.

"Because I'm a lady," she answered with a saucy toss of her scaly head. "Duh!"

"A dragon lady!" he added, and snickered. She realized that she had no hands to hit him with, so she lunged and tried to bite him; he pulled back and she missed. She lunged again, and missed again. The third time, she got aggravated and tried to scream at him. What came out was a draconic bellow, and a puff of green gas.

"Yuck! Sister, that stinks!" he exclaimed. "Don't you _ever_ complain about _my_ odor again!"

"Did you see that?" she gasped. "I did it, a little! I made the smoke! Let me try that again."

"Sure, but face away from me this time," he urged her. She opened her mouth, and a thick stream of the green smoke poured out. Some of it pooled in a small depression in the ground right in front of them; the rest spread out all around them.

"That's it!" she nearly shouted. "All I had to do was try to shout and cough at the same time. I can totally do this!"

"Shout and cough?" Tuff wondered. "I can do that, I think." He tried it. Sparks shot out of his mouth... and ignited the green gas, which blew up with a sharp blast that made their ears ring and was probably audible all over the town.

"I didn't mean to do _that,"_ he said apologetically.

"We better get out of here before somebody wakes up and sees us!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, but where do we go?" he wondered.

"Anywhere!" she shot back. They started to run, and tripped again. "Hey! I said let me do the walking first!"

"You can walk later!" he retorted. "I run faster than you, and we need to run, so let me do it!" She gave up and nodded, and they began running, awkwardly at first, but with better balance as Tuff got used to running with four legs.

"This is weird, but it's working," Tuff panted.

"Where are you taking us?" she asked.

"The training ring! That's where we agreed to go, right?"

"That was before we woke up half the village!" she answered heatedly. "If they start looking around and they find us in the training ring, they'll trap us there!"

"They won't look there," he said as they crossed the wooden bridge that led to the ring. "If you were a dragon and didn't want to get caught, the training ring is the _last_ place you'd go, right?"

"Yes, I am a dragon," she nodded. "Yes, I don't want to get caught. And yes, the training ring _is_ the last place I want to go!"

"Great! Then we're agreed." They stopped in front of the closed portcullis door that blocked their way into the ring. "How do we open this thing?"

"With our hand, just like we did when we were people," Ruff said. She reached out one stubby foreleg, hooked her claws into the wood, and lifted. The portcullis shot up as though spring-loaded. "Wow! I'm really strong now!"

"So am I," Tuff reminded her.

"Yeah, but odor isn't anything to brag about," she answered snidely. "Now let _me_ do the walking." She lowered her head and cautiously stepped into the dragon training ring. He was looking around, and banged his head against the top of the door frame.

"Duck," she said mischievously.

"I'm not a duck, I'm a dragon!" he argued as he belatedly lowered his head and entered the ring with her.

"Yeah, I noticed," she muttered. The closed dragon-cell doors lay in front of them, dark, silent, and vaguely threatening.


	5. Chapter 5

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 5_

"So why are we here again?" Ruff asked the dragon head that was her brother.

"We're going to ask the dragons for help. Duh!" he retorted as they stepped across the training-ring floor.

"Help for what? We already figured out how to make gas and blow it up."

"Oh, yeah. Uhh... we'll ask them for help with how to fly. We haven't figured _that_ out yet."

Ruff shook her head. "And you think these dragons are going to show all their secrets to a total stranger? If a Viking from a strange tribe showed up on Berk and asked us to teach him how to fight, do you think we'd show him the Hooligan Half-Twist, or the Stoick Sword Shuffle, or our other secret moves?"

"No, but these aren't Vikings, idiot!"

"No, they're _dragons,_ idiot! They're even meaner and nastier than Vikings are!"

They broke off when they heard a voice through one of the holding-cell doors. It was higher-pitched than their new voices, but they could understand it perfectly. "Hey, guys, listen! It sounds like there's another Zippleback out there! They're arguing with themselves, just like the last one."

"Great," groaned a lower voice from another cell. "The accursed Vikings caught another one to replace the one who got away! They really must love tormenting us."

"Tuff, do you hear that?" Ruff exclaimed excitedly. "Those are the dragons talking! We can understand them!"

"I thought dragons were stupid," Tuff said confusedly.

"I know you are, but what am I?" a tiny voice from the third cell interrupted them.

"You're a troll!" Tuffnut shot back.

"I know you are, but what am I?"

"You're a son of a tree frog!"

"I know you are, but what am I?"

"You're a –"

"Forget about that!" Ruff almost shouted. "Can you guys help us?"

"If the Vikings caught you, then we all have the same problem," a powerful voice from the second cell answered. "We can't help you, and you can't help us."

"They didn't catch us!" Tuff argued. "We can get out of here any time we want!"

"Denial is always the first stage," sighed the high voice.

"No, really!" Ruff called. "We just walked in, and we can walk out again. But walking is all we can do. Can one of you tell us how to fly?"

That brought silence for a few seconds. Then the low voice said, "They don't know how to fly? No wonder they got caught! This might be the stupidest dragon in the whole nest!"

"I don't remember any Zipplebacks being that dim," the high voice answered. "Maybe the Queen added another one to her collection after we got caught here."

"All the Zipplebacks in our nest were female," the low voice added, "and this one sounds male, or at least one of them is. That doesn't make sense, but they're definitely not one of the dragons we knew. But how did they grow to adulthood if they couldn't fly?"

"That must have been an easy catch, if they're that stupid," the tiny voice chimed in. "Tell them how to fly? Maybe we should tell them how to walk, while we're at it!"

"Would you guys quit talking about us like we aren't even here?!" Ruff demanded.

"Besides, you don't have to tell us how to walk. We figured that out on our own," Tuff said proudly.

"Hoo-boy, they found a real loony-toon to keep us company this time!" the powerful voice said. "Imagine that! They figured out how to walk!"

"Hey, it wasn't easy!" Ruff shot back. "We're used to walking on two legs!"

"Like me?" said the high voice. "Big deal! I've done that all my life, when I wasn't flying."

"But _we've_ done it all our lives, and we _never_ flew," Tuff argued.

That brought some more silence. Then the low voice said, "Wait a minute. When the last Zippleback got out, just before they left, they said, 'We got two of them!' Do you think they got Dragon's Justice on a couple of Vikings, and that's who this Zippleback is?"

"That would explain a lot of things," the powerful voice agreed.

"What's Dragon's Justice?" Ruff demanded.

"It's what you've got a terminal case of, and we're loving it!" the tiny voice answered. The other voices laughed at that.

"You think this is funny?" Tuff exclaimed. "What if the Vikings find us like this? They'd think we're a dragon, and they'd kill us!"

"Why do you think we call it Dragon's Justice?" said the low voice angrily. "It's the ultimate payback from a dragon to a Viking! You kill us, so your friends will kill you! Fair is fair."

"Why won't you tell us what you're talking about?" Ruff asked.

"Hey, I'll make you a deal," the powerful voice said suddenly. "You used to be human, right? That means you know how to work these cell doors. If you let me out, I'll answer all your questions." The other three voices were suddenly clamoring for attention, offering the same deal.

Tuff turned to Ruff. "What should we do?"

"The last time we let out a dragon, it was the stupidest thing we ever did," Ruff replied. "I don't know if I want to do that again."

"But they won't attack us this time, because we're dragons like them!" Tuff said. "We need to learn how to fly, and we need to know what Dragon's Justice is, and the only way we can find out is to let one of them out. I say we let that one go, because he asked first." Before Ruff could answer, he leaned over and pushed the cell-door release lever with his chin. The doors burst open and a Monstrous Nightmare leaped out, looking in all directions for an enemy. When he saw the Zippleback, with the open portcullis behind them, he smiled wickedly.

"Okay, we kept our part of the deal," Ruff said nervously, not sure if the Nightmare meant to attack them anyway. "Now tell us how to fly."

"Just flap your wings, suckers," he grinned, galloped out the door, and flew away into the darkness.

The two heads of the Zippleback turned to face each other. "Now what?" Ruff asked. "And don't even _think_ of letting another one out!"

Tuff began to reply when they both felt dizzy. The light in their eyes was too bright, the roaring in their ears was too loud... and they were both lying on the training-ring floor.

"Tuff," she said woozily, "tell me I'm back to being human again. If you do, I'll kiss you."

"Nope, you're still a dragon," he grinned. At her shocked expression, he quickly added, "Just kidding! You're human. I just don't want you to kiss me, that's all. Am _I_ human?"

"I never thought I'd be so glad to see your ugly face again," she replied.

"Speakin' of ugly faces," came a voice from behind them, "would the two o' ye mind explainin' where me Monstrous Nightmare has gone off to?"

" _Now_ we're in trouble," Ruff and Tuff said simultaneously.


	6. Chapter 6

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 6_

Both Stoick and Spitelout were away on yet another expedition to find and take the dragon's nest, so Gobber was in charge of the tribe until they returned. He called in Gunnarr Hofferson as a witness as he judged this unusual case. "I know fer a fact that ye let one of our dragons out, and I'm thinkin' ye probably let the other one go as well. Vandalizin' the tribe's property is a serious crime, ye two. What do ye have to say fer yerselves?"

Ruff drew a deep breath and burst out, "It's all his fault! He started it!"

"Liar! _You_ started it!" he shot back. They tried to come to blows, but the chief and Gunnarr separated them easily, each holding one wriggling twin by the back of the collar.

"Gobber, these two have caused us endless problems in the past, but it was all minor stuff – never anything like this," the town butcher said. "You see them every day in Dragon Training. Do you have any idea what they're up to?"

"If I had to make a guess, I'd say they're losing in th' training, and they dinna like losing, so they're tryin' to stop the whole trainin' process, one dragon at a time," the old smith said hesitantly. "I canna say fer sure about that, though. They're tryin' just as hard as th' others; they just canna do the job yet."

"If they're such poor dragon fighters, then how could they let dragons out of their cells and not get killed?" Gunnarr asked.

"That's a fair question," Gobber said slowly. "Still, it's a fact that they did it, an' they need to be punished fer it."

"We'll have to wait until Stoick comes back before we take any action," Gunnarr noted.

"Yer right," Gobber nodded. "We'll put 'em in one o' the empty dragon holding cells until th' chief returns an' makes a decision about 'em. We'll make sure they get food an' water."

"Right," Gunnarr replied. They half-pushed, half-carried the twins back to the training ring.

"This isn't our fault!" Tuff protested. "The dragon lied to us!"

"Of course he did," Gobber answered matter-of-factly. "What did ye expect a dragon to do? Give ye an honest answer?" Gunnarr snorted at the thought.

"Gobber, you have to help us!" Ruff pleaded. "Something really bad is happening to us, and the dragons won't help us, so we need you!"

"You're right about something bad that's going to happen to you," Gunnarr interrupted. "If the chief finds you guilty, he could put you out of the tribe. You'd have nowhere to go, unless you want to join the Outcasts. And if you do that, everyone in this tribe will call you traitors and kill you on sight."

They reached the training ring. The empty cells suddenly looked a lot more threatening than the ones that had dragons in them. Ruff burst out, "Gobber, before you lock us up, can I show you something?"

"Does it have anythin' to do with me missin' dragons?" he asked absently.

"Yeah, it does," she answered.

Gobber stopped. "All right, show me."

The way he was holding her halfway off the ground, she couldn't reach down to her feet, so she kicked her left boot off with her right foot. Gobber glanced at her foot, then focused on it. "If I put ye down fer a minute, will ye give yer word that ye won't run away?"

"I promise," she answered, and spat in her hand and held it out. He ignored that hand as he set her down on the ground and examined the four-day-old bite wound.

"That looks like a Zippleback bite, fer sure," he nodded. "But it's too shallow. When a Zippleback bites a man, it injects venom fer pre-digestion, which means it's gonna eat somebody. How did ye get this?"

"Don't tell him!" Tuff urged her. "We're in enough trouble already!"

Ruffnut took a deep breath. "I'll tell you everything," she said nervously. "Maybe it will make things worse for us, or maybe it will help. All I know is, we really need help from somebody." She proceeded to tell Gobber (and Gunnarr) the whole story, from letting the first Zippleback out to being found in the training ring the second time.

"And you expect us to _believe_ that?" Gunnarr laughed. He tried to believe the best about people, but this story was completely ridiculous.

"Tuffnut, lemme see the bite mark on yer shoulder," Gobber ordered. Tuff reluctantly loosened his tunic and showed Gobber the wound. "Okay, yer tellin' the truth about how a Zippleback bit both o' ye, and it's obvious that yer bein' honest about lettin' the dragons out. Yer a pair o' trouble-makers, and that's fer sure, but yer not known fer bein' liars. Much."

"But people turning into a dragon?" Gunnarr scoffed. "You can't believe that, Gobber! That's ludicrous!"

"Be careful, Gunnarr," Gobber said with a shake of his head. "Ye don't wanna confuse 'em by usin' big words like 'ludicrous.' As fer the two o' ye, I'll have to think about this. In th' meantime, I have to obey our law an' lock ye up, but I won't let ye starve. What would ye prefer? Do ye wanna be in the same cell, or in two different cells?"

"Same!" "Same!"

"Well, that was easy. In ye go!" He gave them both a shove, and they stumbled into the cell that used to be the Zippleback's. He threw Ruff's boot in after her, and the doors crashed shut behind them, leaving them in near-total darkness. "I'll be back in an hour or so wi' some breakfast fer ye. Or should I bring ye some fish instead, in case ye turn into a dragon again?" He chuckled.

"Gobber, that's not funny!" Tuff shouted.

"Freein' me dragons isn't funny, either," the old smith retorted. "Our warriors need to practice on 'em or they won't be ready when the dragons attack fer real. Ye've put yer whole village in danger wi' yer little pranks. Now I've got things to do that are more important than talkin' to young vandals. Enjoy yer time takin' the place o' the dragon ye set free. I'll think about what ye told me and' what ye showed me, an' if I think of anything, I'll let ye know." They heard his syncopated footsteps retreating, then the slam of the portcullis being closed, then... nothing.

"Now what?" she asked. Her voiced reverberated in the stone chamber.

"Maybe we can talk to the dragons some more," Tuff said hopefully.

"We can't talk to them when we aren't a dragon, you moron!" she shot back. "Dragons don't talk to people, and... _ick!_ This place smells like dragon poop!"

"At least you won't complain about _my_ body odor for a while," Tuff said with relief. He shuffled his feet to make sure the floor around him was clear before he sat down. She had the same idea a moment later. They sat in silence. There wasn't much else for them to do.

True to his word, Gobber returned in a little over an hour with two breakfast platters. He opened the door just enough to pass them in, then slammed it before they could try to force it open.

"Hey!" Ruffnut protested. "It's too dark in here! I can't see what I'm eating!"

"Count yer blessin's," Gobber answered. "Th' cooks in the Mead Hall made 'mystery meat' fer breakfast. Be _grateful_ that ye canna see it!" They heard him leave.

"Can anything get worse?" Ruff grunted as she tried to spear a piece of her breakfast with her belt knife.

"Don't say that, sister!" Tuff exclaimed. "Things can always get worse."

"How?" she demanded.

"Well... it could rain real hard like it did a few nights ago, and the rain could run under the door, and we'd be up to our ankles in rain water mixed with dragon poop."

"Eww!" Ruff gave up on spearing her breakfast – she'd just lost her appetite.

Outside their cell, they heard the sounds of quiet voices. Then they heard the unmistakable sound of a cell door banging open, followed by the hiss of a Deadly Nadder and a panicked shout from Fishlegs. A moment later, a string of thumps on their door told them that the Nadder had thrown some tail spines in their direction; there was no way to know if it had hit anyone.

"We should have been in that battle," Ruff lamented.

"I'd kick that thing's tail, all right!" Tuff agreed. "Spines and all!" They put their ears to the door to try and hear what was going on outside. All they could hear was the determined voice of... _Hiccup?_ He was giving orders, and it sounded like he was giving those orders to the _dragon!_ "Back! Don't you make me tell you again! Yes, that's right, back into your cage!" Then his voice dropped and they couldn't hear what happened after that. There were no more audible voices, no dragon sounds, just the thud of dragon cell doors closing, then nothing. What was going on out there?

"Something weird just happened," Tuff decided.

"Weirder that us turning into a dragon?" Ruff wondered.

"I don't know," Tuff replied. "We're surrounded by weirdness. I don't know what we're going to do."

"We need to think of something smart," she nodded in the darkness.

"That means we're in real trouble," he said despondently, and she had to agree.


	7. Chapter 7

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 7_

When Gobber brought the twins' lunch to their holding cell, he also brought Gunnarr Hofferson and a flaming torch. He entered their cell, put down their lunch platters, and waited until Gunnar shut the huge door. The flickering light of the torch cast strange shadows on the crudely-chiseled holding-cell walls. "Ye're gonna let me out when I say th' special password, right, Gunnarr?"

"Yes, Gobber," came Gunnarr's muted voice from the other side of the door.

Gobber turned to the twins, who were staring at him curiously. "I've got somethin' to tell ye. Ye aren't gonna like it, but ye need to hear it.

"I did some talkin' to Gothi, an' I did some diggin' in the Book of Dragons," he began. "I think I know what's happenin' to ye. It hasn't happened here in three or four generations, an' it was never commonplace, but the bards an' the lore-masters all agree it's real. It's somethin' we call the Dragons' Justice."

"That's what the dragons called it!" Ruff burst out. "They said we got Dragon's Justice! They thought it was funny, but they wouldn't tell us what it is."

"Hold it right there," Gobber said, holding up his hand. "What do ye mean, 'the dragons said this' an' 'the dragons told us that?' Dragons canna talk."

"When we were a dragon, we could understand them," Tuff answered earnestly. "They talked to each other, and they talked to us and we talked to them! It was just like sitting here talking to you, except it was dragons."

Gobber considered that. "If that's true, then that means dragons aren't as stupid as we thought they were. I'm nae so sure I'm ready to be believin' that. Are ye sure ye dinna dream up th' whole thing from eatin' moldy bread or somethin'?"

"Gobber, we're sure about this," Ruff answered. "Really, really sure."

"This isn't another one o' yer games to try an' get out o' trouble?"

"If we were just trying to get out of trouble, we'd tell you something you'd believe," Tuff said. "We know you'd never believe this, so doesn't that prove that it's true?"

"That's so twisted, it might even be the truth, comin' from you," the smith scoffed. "But I'll think about that part later. Fer now, we'll talk about the Dragon's Justice. It seems that a dragon with venom can bite a man... or a girl... an' give 'em just enough venom to start a slow change in 'em. They become a were-dragon."

"We're dragon? That's us!" Tuff burst out. " _We're_ a dragon!"

"No, ye bampot! A were-dragon means ye're half human an' half dragon. Sometimes ye turn into one, an' sometimes ye turn into the other. Ye canna control it. It just happens."

"Yeah, that _is_ us," Ruff nodded. "We've turned into a dragon twice. The first time was just for a few minutes. The second time lasted over an hour."

"So it's gettin' longer?" Gobber shook his head. "That's nae so good. It means th' dragon venom in ye is takin' over. Th' more time goes by, th' more ye'll be a dragon an' the less ye'll be humans. Ye'll wind up bein' a dragon fer keeps."

"That doesn't usually happen?" Ruff inquired, curious in spite of herself.

"Usually, a were-dragon just changes fer an hour or two, now an' then," Gobber said. "It never lasts fer long, though. Either they get caught an' killed by dragon-slayers, or they go crazy an' kill themselves. Vikings an' dragons... they don't mix so well. Especially when they're the same person."

After a very long pause, Tuff quavered, "Is that what's going to happen to us?"

"If ye really have a final case o' the Dragon's Justice, then I can see three ways fer yer story to end. Number One is that we let ye go while there's still some human in ye. If we do that, then ye'd have to leave the village an' never come back. Once ye become a permanent dragon, ye'll go to live with the dragons, and ye'll probably meet some nets an' spears before the year is done. Dragons raid lots o' Viking villages, not just ours, but the Vikings all fight back, and we're better at bein' Vikings than ye are at bein' a dragon. I dinna foresee a long life fer ye if ye take that road, an' I'm nae so sure Stoick will go along with it in th' first place. He won't like th' idea of another dragon on th' loose out there.

"Number Two is that we keep ye for Dragon Training. We're needin' a Hideous Zippleback fer trainin' anyway, thanks to the both o' ye, so Stoick will probably approve o' that. Ye'd live in this cell, except when we let ye out to fight young warriors, an' the occasional adult who's wantin' a refresher course. Ye'd have to fight as hard as ye could, but not kill anybody."

"What kind of a life is that?" Ruff demanded.

"It could be a long one, an' maybe an interestin' one as well," Gobber answered. "I imagine ye'd like the fightin' part well enough. Ye'd get enough food an' water to keep ye healthy, and no one would kill ye outright. Ye'd take a few solid whacks on the noggin now an' then from trainees like Astrid, but ye'd live a lot longer than ye would in the wild. Besides, yer noggins are plenty tough, an' now ye've got two of 'em, so it wouldna be so bad."

"That's not much of a choice," Ruff decided.

"What's the third option?" Tuff asked.

"Choice Number Three's nae so much an option as a wild maybe," Gobber said slowly. "It could be dangerous, an' there's no guarantee it would do any good at all, but if it worked, it could cure ye."

"We're in," the twins chorused.

"If ye take that option, then the next time ye turn into a dragon, I'd release ye into th' wild, and ye'd have to find a distant relative of Hiccup's. He –"

"A relative of _Hiccup's?"_ Ruff scoffed. "Forget it."

"Ruff, this might be our only chance!" Tuff rebuked her. "Gobber, keep talking."

"This relative lives all by 'imself on top of a mountain somewhere," the smith continued. "No one remembers his name anymore; he goes by the title o' Old Wrinkly. He's forgotten more about dragons than I ever knew. If there's a way to undo th' Dragon's Justice, then he'll know what it is."

"That sounds too easy," Ruff commented. "What's the catch?"

"The catches are, one, no one knows if he's still alive, so ye might be wastin' yer time lookin' fer someone who isn't there anymore. Two, no one knows which mountain he's on top of, so ye gotta find 'im quickly, before ye get real, real hungry. An' three, while it's pretty much fer sure that he knows the answer ye need, no one knows if he'll tell it to ye. He's been known to take a vow o' silence that lasts fer months, until somethin' happens an' he starts talkin' again."

"That will be just perfect," Ruff grunted. "We won't be able to talk because we'll be a dragon, and he won't be willing to talk because he's a Hiccup. We'll just sit and stare at each other."

"I bet I'll win that staring contest," Tuff added eagerly.

"O' course," the old smith added solemnly, "if ye get cured o' the Dragon's Justice and turn back into Vikings fer keeps, ye'll have to come back to th' village an' take yer punishment fer lettin' the dragons out. That's probably th' _real_ down side, from yer point o' view."

Ruff tried to think. "So you're telling us that we have three choices, and all three of them stink?"

Gobber nodded. "None o' this would've happened if ye'd minded yer own business an' not let me Zippleback out."

"We weren't trying to let it out!" Ruff protested. "We just wanted to see what it looked like."

"Well, if ye want to know what it looked like, ye can go look in a mirror th' next time ye become a dragon," the smith shot back. "Except there aren't any mirrors in dragon holdin' cells. Ye don't have to make yer decision now anyway. That won't happen until ye're more dragon than human."

"How long will that take?" Tuff asked nervously.

"I canna say fer sure," Gobber replied as he turned back toward the door. "I'm sure ye've got a few days to think it over."

" _A few_ _days_ _?!"_ Ruff was aghast.

"Aye," Gobber nodded solemnly. "If yer lucky. If not, it could be less, but no one knows fer sure. It's different fer every Dragon's Justice victim, an' nobody's ever heard of two people turnin' into one Zippleback, so we can't even guess how long it'll take with ye."

"You mean we have to make a life-or-death decision, we both have to agree on it, and we've only got days, maybe only hours, to decide?" Ruff couldn't believe what she was hearing. Tuffnut was speechless.

"As Hiccup would say, thank ye fer summin' that up. Th' next time yer wantin' to let one o' me dragons go, think it over first. That's all I have to say fer now. Enjoy yer lunches." He cupped his hands against the door and called, "My Lord of Warwick! Raise high the drawbridge. Gloucester's troops approach!" After a moment, the door creaked open just enough to let him slip through, then banged shut again.

"A few _days_ is all we've got?" Ruff exclaimed. She ran to the doors and shouted, "Hey, Lord What's-his-name! Raise high the drawbridge for us, too!"

"Yeah, let us out of here!" Tuff added. He hammered on the door. There was no response. He leaned against the door and slumped down to the floor. "Now what do we do?"

"We have to make up our minds what choice we're going to take," his sister said disconsolately. "No matter what we do, we'll probably lose."

"Tell me again what we can do?" he asked.

He knew her well enough to know that she had just rolled her eyes, even though he couldn't see her in the dark. "Either we turn into wild dragons, or we stay here as tame dragons, or we try to find a guy who might not even exist. If we go wild, the Vikings will probably kill us. If we stay here, everyone we know will beat us on the head, every chance they get. If we look for the old wrinkly guy, we probably won't find him, but if we do, Gobber thinks he'll know how to make us all better, or maybe he won't."

"Huh." Tuff tried to think. "If we let our friends beat us on the head, at least that will make _them_ happy! They've wanted to do that for years. The 'us getting killed' part... that, I don't like. If we find the wrinkly guy and he won't talk to us, then what?"

"Then, I guess we'll have to take one of the other two choices," Ruff sighed. "The same thing will happen if we can't find the guy. Face it, Tuff. We're hosed, no matter what we do."

"Ruffnut, I promise you, I will never let a dragon out of its cage again!"

"Yeah, well, it's a little late for that." She sounded resigned.

"So... what should we do?"

She made a decision. "Let's eat our lunches, and then spend the afternoon telling each other scary stories in the dark!"

"Awesome!" It always made things better when they could agree on something.


	8. Chapter 8

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 8_

Gobber brought the imprisoned twins their supper; it was uneventful. He knew they were going to spend an unhappy night on the stone floor, and when he brought them their breakfasts the next morning, he expected them to be in a foul mood. He braced himself for that. He was totally unprepared for what he got.

He cracked the door open to pass the two breakfast plates through. Suddenly, something large and hard hit the doors and flung them wide open. Inside, there weren't two irritated, troublesome twins – there was a Hideous Zippleback! Gobber wasn't ready for that, mentally or physically. He'd come to the ring unarmed.

The two heads of the dragon dipped down to his eye level. Wide-eyed, he braced himself for their attack. But they didn't attack. "Rawwr RAWR-rr-Rawr," said the head on the right.

"Is... is that Ruffnut an' Tuffnut?" he finally gasped.

"Rrr-rrr-RAWR-rr," the left-hand head agreed. The right head didn't make any noise, but it did something that dispelled the last of Gobber's doubts. It rolled its eyes.

"Ye... ye really _are_ a dragon!" he exclaimed. Both heads vigorously nodded "yes."

"Okay, then could I ask ye to get back in yer cell, where dragons belong? I'll bring ye some yummy fish fer breakfast, instead o' these plates o' ham an' eggs." They shook their heads "no."

"If ye dinna get back in there o' yer own free will, I'll hafta call some warriors, an' they'll _make_ ye get back in," he threatened them. "Yer nae gonna like that so well, I promise ye."

The left head looked toward the open portcullis door, then glared down at Gobber and exclaimed, "RAWR-rrr snort rawr-rawr-rrr-Rawr!"

"Yer tryin' to tell me somethin," the old smith admitted, "but I canna understand ye."

The dragon hesitated; the two heads had a quick conversation with each other. Then the right head swung down and stopped right in front of Gobber. Then it swung down again and stopped in the empty space right next to him, then again a few more feet away. Then it returned to glare at him.

"Are ye tellin' me that I'm the only warrior in th' village? Stoick an' his warband are away huntin' the dragons' nest, so ye think there's no one left to fight ye but me?" Both heads nodded. "Well, yer wrong, as usual. Phlegma an' a few other warrior women are here, we've got some tradesmen who can still swing an axe, an' I've got the dragon trainees. Between all of us, I'm sure we can, umm, _persuade_ ye to get back in yer cell. It's just a question o' how much persuadin' ye need."

Again the dragon paused. Then both heads gazed longingly toward the open portcullis.

"If ye take that route, ye're leavin' yer village forever," Gobber warned them. "Ye can never come back. If we see ye again, we'll kill ye on sight, 'cause we canna tell if it's you or a real Zippleback. Ye'll be stuck in th' wilderness, half dragon, half human, an' no hope. Are ye _sure_ ye wanna take that route when ye still might have other choices?"

The dragon's two heads had a prolonged conversation that sounded horrific. Eventually, it looked like the right-hand head won the debate. The Zippleback hung both its heads and took one step backwards. When Gobber continued to glare at them, it backed all the way up until it was in its cell again. The left-hand neck hit its head on the door frame; the right-hand head remembered to duck.

Gobber scratched his head. "Honestly, I dinna expect that. Too bad Stoick wasn't here to see this – it's the first time the two of ye _ever_ did the smart thing without bein' forced into it." He closed the doors almost all the way. "I'll tell ye what. I hafta lock ye in, but I'll bring ye some dragony breakfast, an' later in the mornin,' I'll let ye outta yer cell. Ye'll have to stay in th' ring, but ye'll get some fresh air an' some room to stretch yer necks a little. Would ye like that?" Both heads nodded glumly. "I'll be back in a few minutes. Behave, ye two! I mean, ye one! I mean... ach, whatever." He locked the door, then ran for the entrance faster than he'd moved in a very long time.

In the dark holding cell, the head that was Tuffnut was furious. "That was our last chance to blow this joint! Now we're locked up again, thanks to you, _idiot!"_

"Now we're still _alive,_ thanks to me!" she shot back. "We can't fly. We don't know how to catch our own fish. We're no good at fighting like a dragon. If we left here, then if the Vikings didn't kill us, we'd starve to death! Now we're getting free food, nobody's trying to kill us, and... and... I thought there was something else good about doing it this way."

"If you think of it, let me know," Tuff said despondently. "With our luck, we'll turn back into people again, just as Gobber gets here with the raw fish, and we'll have to eat those for breakfast." He stuck out his tongue and exclaimed, "Bleah!" at the thought.

That fear, at least, didn't come to pass. They were still a dragon when Gobber cracked the doors and tossed four fish in before slamming the doors shut. It was too dark to see the fish on the floor, but to the twins' surprise, they located them easily by smell.

"What are we supposed to do with these things?" Tuff asked disgustedly.

Ruff rolled her eyes yet again. "Uhh... eat them?"

"Eat a raw fish? Yuck! No way!"

"I don't like it either, but that's all we've got," she muttered, picked up one of the fish with her teeth, and forced herself to swallow it. "Huh. Actually, it's not so bad. You ought to try one."

"Still no way!" Tuff exclaimed.

"Fine, go ahead and be hungry," she snapped, and searched out another fish in the dark.

"Uhh... don't the two of us have one stomach?" Tuff thought out loud. "So even if you eat all of them, I'll still feel full, right?"

Ruff found herself in the extremely unusual position of having been out-thought by her twin brother. She had no comeback ready for this situation. So she ignored him and swallowed the rest of the fish, one after the other.

"Thanks, sister. I feel better already," Tuff grinned.

"If we weren't the same dragon, I'd kick you!" she snapped.

"I'd like to see you try," he answered.

"Yeah, but... our nerves are probably all connected, so if I kicked you, I'd feel it, too. This being-stuck-together-in-the-same-body is really getting on my nerves. If I feel good, so do you, and if I hurt you, I hurt myself, too. How can I have any fun at your expense if it hurts me as much as it hurts you?"

"Yeah?" Tuff had an idea. "So, if I bang my head against the wall, it will hurt you too? I've gotta try this!" Without waiting another moment, he found a wall and smashed his head against it with full force. He was right about Ruff feeling the pain, too, but he didn't realize how strong he was now. His head and neck flopped to the floor, unconscious. Ruff was partly stunned, but not nearly as badly hurt as he was. She used the half-minute before he regained consciousness to walk them into the middle of the holding cell, so he couldn't reach any of the walls with his head.

"Whoa..." he moaned. "What hit me?"

" _You_ did, you numbskull," she grunted. "Don't do that again."

"Why not? Did it hurt you more than it hurt me, the way Dad always used to say, just before he gave us a good spanking?"

"No, it hurt you more," she answered, "but I still don't want you to do it again, because I don't want to drag your useless head around."

"Oh, yeah? I'll show you whose head is useless!" He swung his head and hit nothing. "Hey! Where's the wall? You moved us! Let me take just four steps to the left, okay?"

"Forget it! I've got the legs, and you aren't going anywhere until I say so."

"Really? Suppose I just hit my head on the floor, instead of on the wall? _Then_ what will you do?"

She didn't get to answer. They heard a click and a grinding sound from outside, and their cell doors sprang open. They both blinked in the sudden sunlight and stepped to the entrance. They expected to see Gobber with some kind of message for them.

Instead, they saw Astrid, Snotlout, Fishlegs and Hiccup, armed for battle, spread out across the training-ring floor, waiting for them with varying levels of confidence and nervousness. Gobber stood at ground level, languidly looking down on all of them.

"Okay, Mister Headbanger," Ruff snapped at her brother. "This is Gobber's idea of getting fresh air and stretching our necks. _Now_ what do we do?"


	9. Chapter 9

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 9_

The four young warriors gaped at the Hideous Zippleback that had just been turned loose from its holding cell. They'd seen Zipplebacks in the air, and they'd seen a few dead ones in the aftermath of a dragon raid, but they'd never seen a live one this close before! It was a lot bigger than they'd realized. But it seemed a lot less nasty, and that puzzled them. It didn't charge at them, or roar, or breathe out that awful-smelling green gas that made you sick if they didn't explode it first. It stepped out of the cell and just stood there, heads weaving back and forth on the long, serpentine necks, apparently talking to itself.

"Well?" Gobber demanded from above them. "Ye've seen dragons before. Does it have a blind spot? Does it like noise? I've showed ye what to do. Now _do_ it!"

Astrid was the first to get moving. She shouted and charged at the huge creature, axe and shield at the ready. The heads stayed high above her, too high for her to hit, so she aimed a blow at the base of the left-hand neck. She held her shield high, expecting to fend off a bite attack. But the dragon didn't try to bite her! At the last moment, just as Astrid raised her axe to swing, the left-hand head sparked. That spark arced to her metal axe-head, then down her arm and into the ground. She dropped her axe with a cry, stumbled away, and tried to rub some feeling back into her tingling arm.

Fishlegs stared from a safe distance. "Gobber, the Book of Dragons didn't say _anything_ about Zipplebacks using their sparks for electrical attacks!"

Gobber scratched his bare head. "Now _that's_ somethin' I've never seen before. I'm thinkin' this Zippleback might be a wee bit different from the others. Ye'd better be careful until ye know more about it."

"Relax, guys, I'll handle this. It's just a dragon!" Snotlout was as cocky as ever as he strode toward the big dragon. The two heads had a quick conversation; then the right-hand head breathed out a huge cloud of green gas and completely hid the whole dragon from view.

"No problem, I'll just hold my breath. It won't blow up the smoke when it's still inside the cloud," came Snotlout's voice from inside the green mist. "I know exactly where that lizard is. (Cough, cough!) It's too big to hide!" Then came a few seconds of silence, then, "Hey! Did I go right through it? I'm inside the holding cell! Where did it go?" Then came two heavy slamming sounds, followed by Snotlout's muted voice calling, "Okay, guys, this isn't funny! Now let me out of here! Guys? Hello!" The dragon was still hidden inside the cloud.

"Well, I did warn ye, the Zippleback is extra-tricky," Gobber commented from his vantage point. "Though I'll admit, this one's takin' 'tricky' to th' next level."

Fishlegs crept closer to Hiccup, as though the spindly smith's apprentice might provide him with some cover. "Chances of survival are dwindling into single digits now," he said nervously. Suddenly, a dragon head appeared out of the smoke right up next to Fishlegs and roared at him. Fishlegs screamed in abject panic and ran for the exit. The dragon head seemed to cackle as it withdrew back into its smoke screen.

That left Hiccup. Gobber left his vantage point and headed for the entrance. This wasn't likely to end well.

The green smoke began to dissipate, revealing the huge red-and-green dragon standing just twelve feet away from the chief's son. It took a sudden step forward, and both heads swept down to surround the boy, grinning with rows of razor-sharp teeth. But he didn't panic, or scream, or even flinch. He reached up with both hands and began scratching under the dragons' chins, one hand for each head. Their eyes went half-closed in delight... and then both heads sagged to the ground, one after the other. The whole dragon went limp a moment later. Gobber just stared in silent amazement. So did Astrid, who had recovered her axe and was ready for another try at fighting the dragon. So did Gothi, who had heard stories about Hiccup's sudden talent at taking down dragons and was watching from ground level, and so did half a dozen other Vikings who were in the neighborhood. Gobber enlisted all of them to help push the inert Zippleback back into its cell (after releasing Snotlout, who was none too pleased at being outwitted by a dragon). Then he gathered his four teen-aged charges.

"As I said when I rounded ye up this mornin', I wanted to teach ye about teamwork an' wet dragon heads, but I dinna have time to get that lesson organized. Now ye know how serious dragon-fightin' can be, an' that's probably a better lesson fer ye. That one dragon took out three o' ye, and ye three dinna land a single blow in return. It's nae so easy, now, is it? Any questions?"

"Yeah," said Snotlout. "Where are Ruffnut and Tuffnut?"

"I've not seen 'em since early this mornin'," the smith said, semi-truthfully. "I'm sure they'll turn up sooner or later. Any other questions?"

"How did Hiccup _do_ that?" Fishlegs demanded.

"Every dragon fighter has his own secret moves," Gobber intoned seriously, "an' it looks like Hiccup has come up with a few of 'em. Maybe he'll tell ye if ye're real nice to 'im." He knew that wasn't much of an answer, but he didn't want to admit that he had _absolutely no idea_ how Hiccup had subdued that dragon with his bare hands. That was almost as big a mystery as what was going on with the twins. This Dragon Training class was giving him more fits than the last four classes put together!

When he cracked open the Zippleback's door that evening, he wasn't at all sure who or what would greet him. It was with a measure of relief that he heard the twins' voices inside, complaining that they'd missed lunch and they were starving. He shut the door again, grabbed three supper plates from the Mead Hall, and slipped two of them through the crack in the door while he ate his own supper just outside.

"The two of ye really put on a show this mornin'," he began. "I was worried that ye'd just stand there an' do nothin' that might hurt yer friends."

"Nah!" Ruff exclaimed from inside. "We've been trying to pound on them for years! It was kind of fun to show them who's boss for a change."

"And that's us!" Tuff added. "When we're a dragon, _we're_ the boss!"

Gobber thought about that for a second. "It sounds like yer gettin' used to becomin' a Zippleback. I thought ye hated every moment of it."

"It's scary and weird," Ruff replied, "but now that we know what we're doing, there are parts of it that are pretty cool. Like making Snotlout look like an idiot."

"Or making Miss Warrior Woman drop her axe before she could swing it!" Tuff chimed in.

"Ye know what this means, don't ye?"

"Uhh... it means we're awesome?" That was Tuffnut, of course.

"It means yer startin' to _think_ like a dragon," Gobber corrected him. "What I saw this mornin' was a mix o' dragon craftiness and yer own cleverness. That's a dangerous combination. I'm thinkin' Stoick won't want that combination in his village, once he finds out about it."

"He'll kill us?" Ruff's voice sounded very small.

"He's still out huntin' the dragon's nest," the old smith reassured her. "There's no tellin' when he'll return, but we've got some time to think this thing over."

"We?" Tuff wondered. "What do you mean, 'we'?"

"Ye've never been anythin' but trouble to me," Gobber explained, "but I don't want to see ye dead. At the same time, ye make a fine trainin' dragon, an' I hate to lose another Zippleback – ye're very uncommon an' hard to catch. Of course, if Stoick decides to kill ye, I'll lose my Zippleback anyway. 'Tis a pretty problem ye've made fer me."

Ruffnut objected to that. "Oh, sure, it's just a problem to _you,_ but to _us,_ it's life or death!"

"Yeah, like she said!" her brother added.

"Aye, I suppose ye might be seein' it that way," Gobber nodded. "I dinna suppose ye might consider what's best fer the village, an' not be so selfish about it?"

"If us being dead is what's best for the village, then we're against it," Ruff said angrily.

"Yeah, like she said!" her brother added.

"Well, we've got a bit o' time to think it over," the smith decided. "In th' meantime, could ye maybe send me a signal when ye turn into a dragon again, so I can arrange another trainin' session with the human teens? Maybe breathe a little o' that green gas under th' door, so I can see it?"

"Wait a minute," Tuff objected. "You want us to tell you when we're a dragon, so you can arrange for Astrid and Snotlout to beat us on the head? Why would we want to do that? That would be, like, totally stupid, even for us!"

"Yeah, like he said!" his sister added.

"How about 'no fight, no eat'? Does that work fer ye?"

"Hey!" Ruff exclaimed. "What did we do to deserve that?"

"Ye let me dragons get away, that's what ye did. When yer Vikings, I have to treat ye according to Viking law, but when yer a dragon, no law protects ye. Zipplebacks are big dragons wi' hefty appetites, an' if I'm gonna throw that many of our fish down yer gullets, th' tribe is gonna expect somethin' in return. In a Viking village, everybody contributes to th' survival o' the group. Yer contribution will be to get beaten on th' head. I mean, heads. It's either that, or I turn ye loose so ye can starve in th' wilderness."

"Uhh... we'll think about that," Ruff quavered.

"Think hard, an' make a _good_ decision, just fer once in yer lives," Gobber said. "Once yer outta here, ye can never come back." They heard his retreating footsteps, the slam of the portcullis, and then nothing.


	10. Chapter 10

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 10_

"Tuff, this 'turning into a dragon' stuff is getting serious."

"You're telling me?" her brother retorted. "We have to choose between getting bashed with axes and hammers here, or starving to death somewhere else. What kind of a choice is that?"

"Unless Chief Stoick decides to kill us. Then we get no choice at all." Ruffnut paused. "Do you think he will?"

"He hates dragons," Tuff replied. "If he thinks we're too dangerous, he'll kill us for sure."

"How can we talk him out of that?" she asked.

"Maybe if we act really, really stupid, he won't think we're dangerous," her brother suggested. "Of course, we've been doing that all our lives, and he still doesn't trust us. But it's the best idea I've got."

Ruff thought before she answered. "If you said that yesterday, I'd say it was such a stupid idea, it just might work. But all of a sudden, I don't _want_ to act stupid. When we're a dragon, our heads are connected and we think of some really cool tricks, like that smokescreen that made such a fool out of Snotlout. I kind of like being clever for a change."

"Yeah, me too," Tuff agreed with a malevolent chuckle. "I can still see Fishlegs' face when I popped out of the smoke and roared at him! I wonder if he wet his pants."

"Tuff? Do you have any idea what Hiccup did to us, back in the ring?"

"Nope. He was scratching under my chin, and it felt really good, and then... the next thing I knew, we woke up in here again. I don't get it."

"I don't like it," she nodded. " _We're_ supposed to be the tricky ones! If Hiccup is playing tricks, too..."

"...then he's moving in on our territory!" Tuff concluded. "We need to take him out!"

"Teach him a lesson!" Ruff grinned.

"Show him who's boss!" Tuff grinned even wider.

"Yeah!" Ruff sounded absolutely predatory.

"So... how are we going to do that?" Tuff asked.

"Easy! We don't let him get close enough to play any tricks. I'll keep some gas between him and us, and if he gets too close, you spark it! Bam! A quick trick on a Hic-cup!" They both laughed at the thought. Then Ruff stopped laughing.

"Hey, Tuff, do you know what? Gobber isn't telling us the whole story!"

"You mean there's more bad news?"

"No, listen! There's actually some _good_ news! He says, if we leave Berk, we'll starve because we don't know how to catch fish, but that's not true. Maybe we don't know how to _catch_ fish, but we know how to _steal_ fish, don't we?"

"Sure we do!" Tuff burst out. "We swipe Fishlegs' fish off his plate all the time in the Mead Hall!"

"And then we put someone else's fish bones in its place," Ruff chuckled. "But if we blow this joint because that's the only way we can keep Stoick from killing us or Astrid from beating us up, we won't starve. We can steal all the fish we need, from this village or from some other village. We'll be fine."

"Should we steal from our own village?" Tuff was having a quick attack of conscience.

"The village is probably going to kill us! Stealing isn't as bad as killing, is it?"

"Well, when you put it that way, I guess it's not so bad. But there's still one problem. We don't know how to fly."

"Oh, yeah." That brought Ruff up short. For a moment, she was actually feeling good about their future. But her brother was right – they needed to be able to fly if they were going to make it as a dragon in the wild.

"So, how do we learn to fly?" he asked after a moment.

"I guess we just… try it until it works," his sister replied hesitantly.

"But we can't try it if we're stuck in this training ring," he said.

"But… but we aren't stuck!" she exclaimed. "We can work the portcullis – we already did it once! All we have to do is wait until they let us out to fight Astrid and the others; then we open the gate, run away, and try to fly!"

"Uhh, aren't you forgetting something?" Tuff said. "Gobber says, if we leave, we can never come back."

Ruff groped in the darkness of their cell until she found her brother, and put both her hands on his shoulders. "Tuff, if we can leave, I don't _want_ to come back. There's nothing for us here anymore except fights, beatings, and maybe getting killed. I'd rather take my chances with the great outdoors."

"We'll be all by ourselves out there," Tuff said dubiously.

"We've got each other, Tuff. That's all we ever needed. Everybody else we know wants to hurt us. Gobber isn't even treating us like people anymore." She gave his shoulders a quick squeeze. "This isn't like anything we ever did before. We used to do stuff together because we wanted to. We _have_ to do this together. If you're not with me, then we have to stay here. If you're with me… we could go anywhere! We could do anything! None of them can stop us! Are you with me?"

"Uhh… can I think it over?" he quavered.

"If they let us out, and we try to make a break for it and fail, we'll never get another chance! They'll lock the gate or something. We need to be ready for action, no questions asked. You can think it over tonight, but you _have_ to make a decision before they give us our breakfast tomorrow morning."

"Ruff, don't you ever tell anyone I said this, but… I'm a little scared of us going out on our own with no one to bail us out if we mess something up."

"Yeah, me too, but I'm even more scared of Stoick and that hammer of his. The way I see it, going out could be bad, but staying here _will_ be bad."

"Yeah, I guess you're right, Ruff. Okay, I'm in. On one condition!"

"What do you want? I can't give you much."

"When we run for it, I want to control our legs. I run faster anyway."

"Okay, you've got a deal. When the pressure is on, I get the wings and you get the legs. We'll use them all before we're done!" They spat in their hands and shook on it, then stretched out on the rough stone floor and hoped they'd be able to get some sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 11_

Gobber knocked on their cell door the next morning. "Is there anybody in there who can talk?"

"Yeah, it's Cu Chulainn and Queen Boudica! We're famous heroes, so let us out of here!"

"No dragon this mornin', eh?" he responded. "Fair enough. I'll get ye some human breakfast. By the bye, there's a ship on th' horizon, an' we think it's Stoick an' his team comin' home. They'll be here in a few hours. Once he's gotten organized, he'll be hearin' yer case an' makin' some kind o' decision about ye. I'm hopin' ye don't turn into a dragon in th' middle o' yer trial. It might be bad fer yer health."

"It's not like we have any control over it!" Ruff called through the door, but Gobber didn't answer. He was already headed for the exit.

Soon after they finished their breakfasts, they heard the sounds of a fight outside. They could make out the sounds of a dragon roaring and snarling. A few seconds later, they heard a thud, then Snotlout's disgusted voice – "Hiccup, again? Really?" That was the end of the fight, apparently.

"What is Hiccup _doing_ out there?" Ruff asked. "It sounds like he's doing everything right, and we aren't the only ones who don't understand it."

"The world is going nuts ever since they took us out of it," Tuff nodded.

At lunch time, Gobber knocked on their door and got two snarls for an answer. "Ah, excellent!" he exclaimed. "Now I can do th' teamwork lesson this afternoon! I'll round up some buckets, an' you two can get ready to push yer friends to their limits. Best of all, th' chief can watch this time!"

The Ruffnut dragon head turned to her conjoined brother. "Teamwork? Buckets? What's that about?"

"I dunno," he shrugged. "We probably won't like it. Especially if Stoick is watching."

"Should we try to break out of here?" she asked. "If Stoick is back, he'll definitely be watching the training to see how Hiccup does. Do you think he'll chase us?"

"He'll never catch us if you let me do the running!" Tuff retorted. "He never caught me before."

"Yeah, but you weren't a big, two-headed dragon with short legs before."

He paused before he answered. "Ruff, I'm sorry I got you into this. I'm going to get us out of it. We'll make our break this afternoon, and I'll do the running. If you can figure out our wings, we'll be free and safe."

"If I can't, then what?" she asked.

"They probably won't try to capture us alive," he decided. "They won't have nets and bolas ready; they'll use the weapons they carry around, and those will be the pointy ones. Honestly, I'm getting so sick of being cooped up in this dark stinking cell with no hope, I'd rather fight to the end!"

"We'll lose," she said soberly.

"Ruff, we're half human, half dragon, caged in a training ring so our friends can beat us up without even knowing who we are! We're losers already. I'm ready to risk it all to be winners again, like we used to be."

"If it doesn't work, we'll be dead," she reminded him.

"If Stoick gets his way, we'll probably be dead anyway," Tuff retorted. "Our only hope of a happy ending is to get out of here. Yesterday, you were so sure that escaping was the best thing! Are you changing your mind?"

"No," she said slowly. "I'm just thinking about what could go wrong now."

"Ruff, we _never_ think about that stuff! It's not our style!"

"Okay," she said with a mix of nervousness and anticipation. "You're right. We're gonna do it! We'll break out as soon as they let us out of the cell, and… we'll see what happens."

He glanced at their forefeet. "We can't spit and shake hands on it."

She breathed a bit of her gas onto the floor just in front of them. "Spark that," she ordered. He did; it made a small explosion that blackened their frontal scales a bit. "That's how we're going to spit and shake hands when we're a dragon. All or nothing!"

"All or nothing," he agreed. "I think."

About two hours later (it was hard to tell time in the dark), they heard Gobber's voice outside. "This afternoon is about teamwork!" Their cell doors burst open. Waiting outside were Hiccup with Fishlegs, and Astrid with Snotlout, all holding buckets of water instead of weapons. The Dragon Trainees would pose them no mortal threat today. Immediately, Ruffnut began laying a green smoke screen, first in front of them, then to the right, along the wall. Tuff walked them to the right, keeping them just inside the smoke, and she continued extending the screen around the edge of the training ring until they'd passed the portcullis. They heard Gobber saying something about wet dragon heads, but their attention was elsewhere. They backed up until they were next to the portcullis.

"Are we ready?" Tuff asked.

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be," Ruff answered. "You've got the legs. Open that gate and run for it!"

He reached out with a stubby foreleg and whipped the gate open. "Run!" she shouted.

"I'm running! I'm running!" he answered, and he was. An ungainly gallop was the best that a Zippleback could do on the ground, and they were certainly galloping. Shouts and cries from behind them made it clear that they hadn't made a clean getaway.

"You keep running; I'll look back," she said. Having two heads on the same dragon had its advantages! Spitelout was leading a ragged charge of the Vikings who happened to be watching their training session; Stoick was in that group, but was back in the pack. The Vikings weren't gaining on them, but they weren't losing ground, either, and their weapons were drawn. "We're holding our own," she exclaimed. "But they're mad. Keep going!"

"We're running out of room," he puffed. She glanced ahead. A group of Vikings from the town had seen them and was running to cut off their path. "Maybe you should be trying to make those wings work?"

"Yeah, good idea." Making them flap was like shrugging her shoulders when someone asked a hard question, but using muscles that were a little lower. They were rising slightly with each flap, but they were nowhere near flying. "It's not working."

"Try harder!" he shouted.

"I _am!_ " she retorted. The pursuers behind them and the pursuers ahead would meet in about thirty seconds. The only way for them to avoid becoming the meat in a dragon sandwich was to jump off the cliffs to their right. That option wasn't thrilling, but their other options were running out fast.

"Ruff! _Do_ something!" Tuff screamed.

"It's not working!" she shouted back. The group in front of them was close enough to throw spears now. They had run out of room.

"I am _not_ going to die _their_ way!" Tuff shouted, swerved to the right, and jumped off the cliff. Ruff screamed as they plunged toward the rocks and water far below them, and stretched their wings out as far as they would go…

…and they were gliding.

For a moment, the twins were speechless. They were almost never at a loss for words, even though those words might not be very profound. But now, for the first time in their lives, they were up off the ground but in no danger of hitting the ground, and the feeling of sudden freedom after days of captivity was almost stunning, it was so powerful. Tuff was the first to find his voice.

"We're flying, Ruff. You've doing it. We're flying!"

"Yeah." Ruffnut was still amazed at the sensation. She experimentally gave their wings a flap, and they rose slightly. Someone behind them threw a spear; it struck their thick back scales and glanced off. Then they were too far away to be hit by thrown weapons.

Ruff flapped again, and they gained some more height. "This is amazing!" she exclaimed. She stretched her neck straight out so the wind wasn't pushing against her neck so hard. Tuff copied her after a moment. She kept flapping.

"How come we can't change direction?" Tuff asked. Ruff tried flapping harder on one side than the other; they swerved and almost spun out of control. As they spiraled downward, they found the tips of their tails dangling a few feet in front of their faces.

"Maybe the tail will help," Ruff suggested. She straightened their tails (it took effort; she'd never tried to control her own tail before). Their spiral ended; some more flapping got them back up to their previous height. She bent their tails slightly, and they curved around in a broad circle. "Oh, yeah! I've totally got this figured out now!" she shouted. She bent their tails up; they began climbing.

"Can I have a turn?" Tuff asked eagerly.

"Not yet," she said firmly. "First, I want to touch those clouds!"

For a few minutes, they completely forgot that their life was out of control, or that their friends were hoping for a chance to kill them, or that they were now homeless and without any source of food. They just focused on the cloud layer as they drew closer and closer to it. When they were almost into it, Tuff suddenly raised his head. "Ha! I touched it first!" Then they were completely immersed in the clouds, and they were speechless again. That lasted until they burst out the top, into the realm of sunlight and blue sky that they so seldom saw from the ground. The sudden change from prisoners in the dark, to a free creature above the clouds, left them struggling for words.

Finally, Ruff found her voice. "Tuff… I don't want to go down again."

"Yeah. Me neither." That was as close to reverent as Tuff's voice had ever sounded. For a few minutes, they just flew. Never before in their lives had they been so content to just do nothing and go nowhere.

At last, Tuff asked again if he could have a turn controlling their wings. "Uhh, okay," Ruff said reluctantly. She quickly described how flapping worked, so he wouldn't crash them, and gave up control of their wings. He nearly crashed them anyway, several times. At last, he gave up.

"I guess you're better at flying, and I'm better at running," he admitted.

"That's cool," she nodded as she resumed control. "We'll have plenty of chances to do both."

"So… what do we do next?"

Ruff's face split into a draconic equivalent of her scheming grin. "We'll fly around until after dark. Then we'll land and steal some fish for our supper!"

"Swiping stuff is cool, but I'm still not sure we should steal from our own village." It wasn't like Tuffnut to have qualms of conscience.

"If we'd stayed in the training ring, they'd give us the fish anyway, so we're just taking what's ours," she answered. "Besides, I don't think that's our village anymore. They tried to kill us, and they chased us away. We don't owe them anything."

"Okay, I guess that makes sense… but what if they catch us? I've seen what they do to dragons that get caught."

"Then they won't catch us, okay?" she decided. "We'll be totally quiet and sneaky."

"Just like the time we put the polecat in Snotlout's basement?" he grinned.

"Yeah, just like that," she agreed with a matching grin. They did nothing but fly for the rest of the afternoon. They had found something to do that was completely awesome, but wouldn't get them in trouble (or at least no more trouble than they were already in).

Their purloined supper didn't quite go according to plan. Just as they landed, the blinding light in their eyes and the roaring in their ears warned them that they were about to turn into humans again. The next thing they knew, they were lying on the ground next to the fish-drying racks, disoriented and dizzy.

"I'm still not used to that," Tuff muttered. "Now what do we do?"

"Uhh, grab some fish?" Ruff said. They proceeded to do so.

Suddenly they heard a shout from above them. "Hey, you two! What's going on down there?!"

"It's the night watchman!" Tuff hissed. "Are we toast?"

"Grab all the fish you can carry, and run!" she said urgently. "We'll split up and meet in the Lost Cavern. After we turn back into a dragon, we'll eat the fish and we'll be full all day."

"That's enough of a plan for me," he said. As the watchman ran at them, one twin went left and the other went right. He couldn't decide which one to chase, so he stood there and watched them both get away as he shook his fist and called down divine imprecations on them. They met in their childhood hiding place about half an hour later. Both of them dumped their purloined fish on the ground. Tuffnut surveyed the pile with distaste.

"It's hard to believe we actually eat those things raw," he grimaced.

"I guess our tastes are changing," Ruff suggested. She picked up a fish and bit off a piece, and quickly spat it out. "Yuck! This is dragon food, not people food." About three hours later, when they had nearly dozed off, they turned back into a Zippleback. She ate their supper, which made them both feel much better; then they fell asleep in the cave with their necks crossed and their heads next to each other. It had been an exhausting day, but for the first time in a week, it was a good day.


	12. Chapter 12

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 12_

"Bud, I'll bet I'm going to sleep like a log tonight!"

Hiccup was talking to a creature that couldn't really understand him, but at least the Night Fury was willing to listen, which was more than he could say for anyone else he knew. He and that Night Fury had spent the better part of the day together, trying out the new flying rig he'd invented and built. It was supposed to restore the injured dragon's ability to fly, and it worked... as long as the rider stayed alert, understood flight, and had a certain amount of luck. Hiccup wasn't sure which of those qualities had saved his and the dragon's lives during that wild free-fall and the crazed aerial roller-coaster ride through the sea-stacks that followed. That flight should have killed them. Instead, it had bonded them together as more than victor and vanquished, or rider and mount. They were friends.

They had retreated to a barren, rocky beach to eat some fish together and unwind after that thrilling, terrifying first flight together. They'd had a surprising encounter with a small flock of Terrible Terrors there, which made Hiccup realized that his tribe's knowledge of dragons was terribly mistaken in every way. They'd spent the rest of the day gliding around slowly, getting used to the feeling of flying as a team, and not doing _anything_ that might put their lives in jeopardy again. Now they were returning to the cove that served as Toothless' hiding place, safe from bloodthirsty Vikings. Hiccup would leave the dragon there and walk back to the village. There, he'd try to deal with the adulation of a tribe who thought he was their next champion dragon fighter, when fighting them was now the _last_ thing he wanted to do.

As soon as they landed, Hiccup knew something was wrong. Toothless tensed up, growled, and began looking all around the cove. Then he slowly stalked toward a large rock near the cliff walls. Hiccup followed, slowly and cautiously. Toothless' eyesight was his best sense, but he still had a better nose than any human. Something or someone was hiding behind that rock.

The dragon let out a snarl. It was answered by two panicky cries from behind the rock. Those cries sounded familiar somehow...

"Ruffnut? Tuffnut? Is that you?"

"Hiccup, whatever that thing is, make it go away!" Ruff shouted.

"Yeah!" her brother added. "Distract it! Throw a stick and make it fetch! Throw yourself in front of it as a sacrifice so we can live!"

"I don't think he'll hurt you if you don't act like a threat," Hiccup said hesitantly. He wasn't sure about that; he still knew next to nothing about Night Furies, even though he might be the world's foremost expert on them. "Come out slowly, one at a time, with your hands empty. Don't make any sudden moves."

Tuff shouted, "You sound just like the chief when he was talking us out of the caves after our caper with the mud-bomb launcher!"

"Yeah, you know, 'like father, like son,' I guess." That might have been the first thing that Hiccup and his father had ever had in common. "Now come out where we can see you, before Toothless gets impatient."

"Toothless?" Ruff wondered. " _This_ thing isn't toothless. Do you have a monster with no teeth that we don't know about?"

"Honestly, I wish you didn't know about _this_ one." Somehow, the twins had stumbled upon his secret cove, and now they'd stumbled upon his _big_ secret. They literally held his life in their hands now; if they spilled the beans, his dragon-hating father would put him out of the tribe, exile him, maybe even kill him. On the other hand, he had some control over Toothless, and Toothless was in control of the situation with the twins. It was a stand-off. Maybe he could work some kind of a deal with them.

Then Ruff stumbled out from behind the rock, hands held high. The dragon tensed. "Toothless, no! She's a friend, more or less. Ruff, go stand next to the water. Tuff, come on out, and go stand by the water with your sister." The other twin hastened to obey.

"Okay, now tell me what you two are doing here."

"We don't have to answer you!" Ruff shot back. "You're not the chief!"

"And you probably never will be, if Snotlout has anything to say about it!" Tuff added.

"Yeah, you're right, I'm not the chief," Hiccup sighed. "And maybe you're right about the other part. But for now, I've got the dragon and you don't, so –"

"Like he said. _For now,"_ Tuff said to Ruff, and winked. She winked back.

"What does that mean?" Hiccup asked nervously.

"Oh, we've got a little secret that you don't know about," Ruff answered mysteriously.

Hiccup knew all about the kinds of "secrets" they might have. All of them were bad news for somebody, and right now, he was the only other "somebody" around. "Look, I don't want any trouble," he quavered.

"That's okay. We _do_ want trouble!" Tuff cackled. "Lots of it!"

That sounded like a challenge, and for the first time in his life, he had an equalizer. "Okay, then. Toothless? Do you see those two?" The dragon growled and took a step toward them.

"Okay, okay, we'll talk!" "We'll tell you everything!" "Ask us anything, we'll answer!" "Don't let him hurt us!"

"Okay," Hiccup smiled. "For starters, how did you two find this place?"

The twins glanced at each other. "I don't think we should tell him _that,"_ Ruff thought out loud.

"Come on! You said you'd tell me everything! The last thing I heard, you two were in big trouble with Gobber, then you disappeared, and now you're here in a place that I thought was a secret. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't turn you in to the village."

"One good reason?" Tuff said. "Okay, here's a good reason. They'll never catch us."

"You can outrun me, but you'll never outrun _him,"_ Hiccup retorted, jerking his thumb at Toothless. "Now talk to me. How did you get here?"

The twins exchanged glances and shrugged. Ruff began, "We were flying over it, and we looked down and saw it, and it looked like a good place to hide for a while, so we did."

"You were flying over it?" Hiccup wasn't ready to believe that, even though he'd just done that very thing himself.

"Yeah."

"Flying on a dragon?"

"Well... not exactly."

"Ruff, don't tell him!" Tuff urged.

"Hold it," Ruff exclaimed. "While we're asking questions, it's our turn to ask a question. What's the deal with you and this big black... thing?"

"Yeah!" Tuff added. "Have you made _friends_ with that... whatever-it-is?"

Hiccup thought that over for a few seconds, then looked sly. "It sounds like you two have a secret you're hiding. So do I." He gestured at Toothless. "If we tell each other our secrets, then neither of us will dare tell anyone else, because the other will rat us out and we'll _all_ be in trouble. We'll have to trust each other. What do you think?"

The twins looked at each other. "He's right," Ruff decided.

"Can we trust him?" Tuff asked.

"Once we know his secret, he'll be perfectly trustworthy," she grinned. "Or else!" She turned to Hiccup. "There's two of us and one of you, so you go first."

Hiccup looked confused for a moment, then shrugged. "Fine. Meet Toothless. He's a Night Fury."

"Yeah, right," Tuffnut scoffed.

"What do you mean, 'yeah, right'?" Ruff exclaimed. "Nobody ever saw one before. How do you know that isn't one? I mean, I always figured a Night Fury would be black and scary-looking, and that thing is _definitely_ black and _very_ scary-looking." She gestured at it; it bared its teeth and growled. "Uhh, what's the deal, Hiccup? I mean, it... I mean, you and it... how did you...?"

"Remember the night of the last big raid, when I said I shot down a Night Fury?" Hiccup reminded them. "I really did. I went into the woods and found him so I could kill him... but he looked so scared, I let him go instead. When I found out I'd injured his tail so he couldn't fly anymore, I made him a new one, and we're learning to fly together. This cove is where he hangs out when we aren't in the air."

"Does that have anything to do with the crazy stuff you're doing in Dragon Training?" Tuff asked.

"I'm learning things about dragons that nobody else ever knew before, just by spending time with him," Hiccup nodded. "I can use that in the training ring. Everybody thinks I'm this amazing dragon fighter... but I don't want to fight them anymore! They aren't the savage killers we always thought they were! Everything we know about these guys is wrong."

"Yeah, we know," Ruff said drily.

"Okay, what do you know?" Hiccup asked. "You know my secret; now it's your turn. I know you're in trouble with Gobber for letting the dragons go – the whole village knows that – but I think there's more going on here than that. What are you up to?"

Ruff responded, "In an hour or so, we'll be up to about 6000 pounds."

"Huh?" Hiccup was expecting the details of their latest scheme, and this was not it.

"We got bitten by a Hideous Zippleback," Tuff explained. "Its venom is turning us into a dragon. We change into a Zippleback for a while, and then we change back. We can't control it, and it's getting worse."

"Gobber says there's somebody who might be able to help us, but we don't know where he is, and we're still not so good at flying. We're trying to stay out of trouble until we can take care of ourselves, and then go looking for this Old Wrinkly guy, wherever he –"

"Old Wrinkly?" Hiccup burst out. "You mean my grandfather, Hiccup II?"

"Yeah, Gobber said he was a relative of yours, and..." Tuff's eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute. He also said nobody knows his name, or where he lives, or anything! How come _you_ know?"

"Family secrets," Hiccup shrugged. "It's not that we don't tell anybody; it's just that nobody ever asks about him anymore."

"Do you know where this wrinkly guy lives?" Tuff demanded.

"If you do, you have to tell us!" Ruff burst out. "It could mean life or death for us!"

"My grandfather likes his privacy," Hiccup began, "and I don't know exactly where he lives, but I can take a pretty good guess. By the way, his full name is Hiccup Horrendous Haddock II, but he always hated that name."

"Then why did your father name you after him?" Ruff asked.

"It's a family tradition, I guess," Hiccup shrugged. "Anyway, the last time any of us saw him, he said he was retiring to a place where he could look down on the lizards. There's only one place I can think of where he could do that, and that's on top of the Wild Dragon Cliff. Nobody can get there unless they can fly, so I don't know if he ever got there, or how. But if he's got the answer to your problem, that's where I'd start looking."

"Sure, except for one little thing," Ruff interjected. "We don't know where this place is."

"And if he likes his privacy, he might not even talk to us," Tuff added.

"Hmm... you're probably right," Hiccup said. "You guys never used to think of stuff like that. When did you two get so smart?"

"We think it's part of becoming a dragon," Ruff explained. "Our heads are joined, so we can think together when we want to, and somehow that's carrying over to the times when we're human, too. Our sense of smell is also getting better."

"Okay, I'll make you an offer," Hiccup suggested. "How about if, tomorrow, as soon as you turn into a dragon, we all fly off to the Wild Dragon Cliff together? I think I know the way, and if I introduce you to my grandfather, he might be friendlier."

"What do you get out of this deal?" Tuff asked suspiciously.

"I can watch you in the air, up close, and learn more about how dragons fly," he answered. "The more I know, the better I can help Toothless, and the better we can fly together."

"Why do we have to wait until tomorrow?" Ruff wondered.

"Because I've had a long, busy day, and I'm probably going to fall asleep in half an hour, no matter what I'm doing," he said, fighting back a yawn. "If we're going for a long flight, I want to do it while I'm awake and alert."

"Alert for what?" Tuff asked.

"Well, the place is probably called Wild Dragon Cliff for a reason," Hiccup replied. "The locals won't object to Toothless, and they probably won't have a problem with you if you're really a dragon, but I don't know how they'll react to me. I need to be ready for anything."

"Yeah," Tuff agreed. "Hey, what if we get there and then turn back into people? The dragons will hate us. That might be really bad."

"All I can say is, if my grandfather is living there, then the dragons can't be as hostile as we think they are," Hiccup decided. "I've kind of come to that conclusion on my own. What about you two? When you're a dragon, do you feel the urge to kill everyone in sight?"

" _You_ tell _us,"_ Ruff smirked. "We could have killed you a few days ago, and we didn't. The same with Astrid and Snotlout and Fishlegs."

"But I still want to know how you knocked us out with your bare hands," Tuff added.

Hiccup went pale. "You mean... that was _you_ in the training ring?"

"All sixty-two feet of us," Ruff grinned. "Surprise!"

Hiccup glanced at his hands and squirmed. "And I was rubbing you guys under the chin? Eww! Now I feel dirty."

"Hey! We both took a bath last week!" Tuff objected.

"Never mind that," Ruff cut in. "If we have to wait until tomorrow to make this trip with you, we'll wait. But what if... oh, no... I was wrong about one more hour, here it comes..." They both grimaced and fell to their knees.

"Ruff? Tuff? What's wrong?" Hiccup asked anxiously. Toothless growled and backed off, his ear flaps down. A moment later, there was a blinding flash...

"Oh, mother," Hiccup gasped. "They really _are_ a Zippleback!"


	13. Chapter 13

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 13_

A few seconds ago, the twins had been chatting amiably with the tribe's resident foul-up, who had become the tribe's number-one dragon-fighter-in-training, thanks to committing the unforgivable sin of befriending a dragon. Now, the twins _were_ a dragon, staring down at Hiccup and the Night Fury from a much greater height than they'd ever known as humans. It was an interesting point of view.

The black dragon leaped in front of his human friend. "Back off, whoever you are!" he snarled. "Right now!"

"Whoa! Take it easy!" Ruffnut exclaimed. "We don't want any trouble."

"I thought we _did_ want trouble," Tuffnut objected

"Not with a Night Fury! Tuff, back us off." He quickly complied.

"That's better," the Night Fury said, slightly mollified. "If you mess with my human friend, you mess with me, and if you mess with me, I'll _make_ a mess out of _you!"_

"You call _him_ your _friend?"_ Ruff was amazed.

"We've spared each other's lives, we've _saved_ each other's lives, we've flown together, and we've shared food," Toothless answered. "We respect each other and we take care of each other. To me, that spells 'friendship,' even though he _is_ a different species."

"Respect?" Tuff scoffed. "You know he calls you Toothless, right?"

"I've never understood a single word he said to me," the black dragon said, "but his actions speak far louder than his words. The name probably means something special to a human, and I don't take it as an insult. What does he call _you?"_

"I'm Ruffnut, and he's Tuffnut," Ruff said slowly. "We aren't really a dragon, you know."

"Of course you aren't," Toothless snorted. "I watched you change just now; I know what Dragon's Justice is, even though I've never seen it before. You'll be a dragon soon enough! But for now, you look like a dragon, you talk like a dragon, you..." His nose wrinkled. "...I'm not sure you smell like a dragon, though. Do you ever bathe?"

"Oh, give it a rest!" Tuff snapped, as his sister snickered.

Toothless relaxed slightly. "So you're a couple of big-time dragon slayers who are finding out what it's like to be on the other end of the spear? I can't say I feel sorry for you. Not even a little bit. I've seen way too many dragons killed by Vikings, but if the humans get _you_ while you're a dragon, I don't think I'll cry over it."

"We never killed a dragon in our lives!" Tuff protested. "We were supposed to learn how, but _this_ happened to us instead."

The Night Fury grinned; it was not a pleasant grin. "So a dragon got you before your dragon-slaying careers even got started? So much the better! Now you'll never kill any of my kind! Or should I say, 'our kind'? You're well on the way to becoming one of us." He suddenly looked thoughtful. "Maybe you can help us, once you're completely dragonized. You know human tactics and fighting tricks. You could teach our young the best ways to fight humans, so they'll live longer and recover more food when they're full-grown. We could call it 'human training.' All dragonkind would be in your debt."

"You expect us to help dragons fight humans?" Tuff burst out. "Are you crazy? That would be, like... treason!"

"Once you're a dragon for keeps, it would be more like... loyalty," Toothless suggested. "Not that it will affect me in any way. My human-fighting days are done. I need this human to fly, and I know he'll never guide me into a battle against other humans. But the other dragons would appreciate it more than I can say."

"You really think we'll be so... dragonated... that we'll turn on our own tribe?" Tuffnut challenged him.

"The longer you stay a dragon, the more dragonish you'll be," the Night Fury explained. "It won't be long before you walk like us, you talk like us, and you _think_ like us. You'll see dragons as your brothers and sisters, and humans as the heartless killers that they are. Most of them, anyway. You'll look back on your human past and shudder!"

"We'll never let things go that far," Ruff told him. "We're on our way to find out how to undo what that dragon did to us."

"Good luck with _that,"_ Toothless scoffed.

"Why?" Tuff asked. "Are you saying it can't be done?"

"Every dragon knows it can be done, in theory," he explained patiently, "but it's never been tried. Ever! I mean, who would _want_ to turn a nice, normal dragon back into a crazed Viking dragon-slayer? Or, worse yet, _two_ crazed Viking dragon-slayers? Or even a pair of slayer wannabes like you? I can understand your wanting to go back to your past, but don't get your hopes up. Dragonhood is your destiny now. The sooner you embrace it, the happier you'll be."

Suddenly, Hiccup spoke up. "Uhh, is this a friendly get-together, or are you guys planning war? It sure looks like you're talking to each other, but I can't understand what you're saying."

"Of course you can't – you're not a dragon!" Ruff exclaimed.

"Duh!" Tuff added.

"Save your breath; he can't understand you," Toothless snapped.

"Maybe not, but _we_ can understand _him,"_ Tuff retorted.

"You can? Yes, of course you can," the Night Fury exclaimed. "Your human side hasn't been eclipsed yet. So we could have one-way interspecies communication. That's still very limited, though."

"Like I said, I have to get home and rest," Hiccup went on. "If I leave you guys here overnight, are you going to fight each other?"

Ruff brought her head right down to Hiccup's level, which made him back off a step, and shook her head "no."

"What was that head-shake thing that you just did?" Toothless asked.

"That's how humans say 'no' without words," Ruff explained.

"Do you have a gesture that means 'yes'?" he asked.

"Sure – it looks like this," Tuff answered. He nodded "yes."

"Okay, you guys are confusing me, as usual," Hiccup sighed. "One of you is saying 'no' and the other is saying 'yes,' and I don't know who to believe."

Toothless wasn't confused; he was excited. "So humans have a gestural language, as well as a spoken language? None of us ever knew that before! What other signs can you make to each other?"

"If we had fingers, I could count to ten," Tuff offered.

"And if you go like this –" Ruff rolled her eyes "– that means, 'I can't believe you're that stupid!' I use that one a lot on my brother."

"I'd imagine that humans in general would use that one a lot on each other," Toothless commented drily. It went right over their heads.

Hiccup was getting irked. "Ruff, I know you think I'm stupid, but I just don't speak dragonese! That's not my fault! I wish I _could_ understand you, so I could talk to Toothless... but I can't. I'm going to ask again – is it safe for me to leave you guys here all night together?"

Ruff did a quick translation for Toothless' benefit, and all three dragon heads nodded "yes."

Hiccup's eyes went wide. "Toothless! You're communicating with me!" Then his face fell. "But you need the twins to translate what I'm saying." Then he looked excited. "But if you guys stayed here, you'd be safe, and you could help me and Toothless talk to each other!" His face fell again. "But then you'll be stuck being a dragon forever, and you don't want that. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about that now. Why do dragons make life so complicated?"

"Don't talk to _us_ about dragons making life complicated!" Ruff exclaimed, even though she knew Hiccup couldn't understand her.

"Look, I can't stay up all night arguing with dragons," Hiccup burst out in frustration. "Especially when I can't understand your side of the debate. I'm going home. Toothless, be good." After a quick translation, the black dragon nodded. "And you two, if you don't behave, remember – he's a Night Fury!" The two heads of the Zippleback glanced at the scowling face of the black dragon and nodded soberly. "Great. I'm out of here. I'll (yawn) see you in the morning." He managed a smile. "We're going to do some _flying!"_


	14. Chapter 14

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 14_

"So, who wants to fly to the Wild Dragon Cliff?" When Hiccup arrived at his secret cove the next morning, he wasn't sure if he'd meet a Zippleback or a set of twins, and he wasn't sure whether Toothless might have killed either of them in self-defense. But he found two dragons, which would have horrified or enraged most Vikings, but in these bizarre circumstances, it actually set his mind at ease.

The Zippleback heads nodded vigorously. Toothless gave them a quick snarl, they aimed some grunts and growls in his direction, and then he nodded as well. "Awesome! Let's go, then." He jumped into Toothless' saddle and they all bounded into the air. "Off we go, to the Wild... Dragon... uh oh."

The twins' heads gave him a concerned look. "According to my map, there are _two_ Wild Dragon Cliffs. There's a medium-sized one right here on Berk, and there's a much bigger one on the Visithug island. I don't know which one Old Wrinkly would have chosen."

The Zipplebacks translated for the Night Fury, and all three dragon heads rolled their eyes.

"Fine, whatever! We'll find him, one way or another," Hiccup said defensively. "The Berk version of Wild Dragon Cliff is just a couple of minutes away by air. If that one doesn't pan out, we've got all day to reach the other one." He altered Toothless' course to the north, and the twins' dragon followed. They flew in silence for a few minutes, until they reached the northern shoreline. To their left, the rocks rose up into a sheer sandstone cliff, pockmarked by dozens of caves of varying sizes.

"Wild Dragon Cliff!" Hiccup exclaimed. The right-hand Zippleback head let out a derisive snort that probably meant, "Duh!"

It took them less than a minute to search the top of the cliff. There was no sign of human habitation, past or present. The only wild dragons they saw were a handful of Terrible Terrors that popped their heads out of their holes to see the newcomers, watched them for a few seconds, then pulled back into their caves. "I guess we want the other cliff, then," Hiccup said. He got his bearings and led his dragon flock out to sea.

They hadn't gone far when Toothless began dipping his head toward the sea and grunting expressively. "You want some breakfast? Go ahead; we've got time." The Night Fury swooped down to low altitude, where he began flying circles and figure-eights, evidently looking for a shallow-running school of fish. The Zippleback followed him as best they could, but their flying skills were clearly not up to the challenge of keeping pace with a hungry Night Fury.

After about ten minutes, Toothless found what he was looking for. He pulled up into a loop, sparked a firebolt at the top, and fired it into the sea as he dove. In half a minute, stunned codfish were floating to the surface all around them. Toothless scooped them up with his paw, one by one, and swallowed them whole. Ruffnut and Tuffnut watched him, had a brief but intense discussion about something, then glided down and tried to scoop some fish of their own. After some clumsy experimenting, they figured out how it was done. Hiccup noticed that Ruff's head did all the eating. At least he assumed that was her head; that head seemed much more expressive when it rolled its eyes. The two heads shared a common stomach, so neither of them would be hungry when they were done, but why didn't Tuffnut swallow any fish? He'd ask them the next time they turned human.

Toothless caught one more fish, but instead of swallowing it, he turned back toward Hiccup and grunted quizzically. "No, thanks, bud; I already ate." The dragon swallowed the fish, waited for the Zippleback to finish eating (they needed more fish because they were a bigger dragon), and the miniature flight of dragons continued on their way.

Hiccup's plan to watch the Zippleback in flight, and learn more about how dragons fly, hit an immediate snag. Toothless insisted on flying in the front of their formation. That meant his rider had to crane his neck to see the other dragon. Within minutes, he had a sore neck. He tried to encourage the Night Fury to let the other dragon fly next to them, and the heads of the Zipplebacks seemed to translate his words, but Toothless was adamant. He was the number-one dragon around here, and he would not cede one inch to another dragon. Hiccup resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't going to get much out of this deal. He continued because... well, it was the right thing to do.

They were barely halfway there when both heads of the Zippleback began crying out in distress. "What's wrong? I wish I could understand you!" Hiccup exclaimed. A moment later, there was a bright flash, and two human twins were tumbling out of the sky toward the sea far below.

"Toothless! Grab them!" The Night Fury was already diving, as though he'd been expecting this to happen and was ready to react. He caught Tuffnut easily with his front paws, flapped hard to overtake the screaming, falling Ruffnut, and siezed her with his hindfeet less than fifty feet from the ocean.

"That was close," she gasped.

"Can we do that again?" Tuff exclaimed excitedly. "Only, next time, let _me_ almost hit the water!"

"You guys can work that out on your own time," Hiccup called from above them. "Now that you can talk to me, I've got some questions I'd like to ask, starting with, 'Did you and Toothless get along okay together last night?' "

"For a friend of yours, he's kind of cool," Tuff answered.

"We told him a lot of stuff about humans," Ruff said. "I guess the dragons think we're all savage, heartless killers. Kind of the way we see them, you know? It surprised him to know that we have families and we take care of each other."

"It _really_ surprised him to find out that you're the son of the Alpha," Tuff added. "That's what dragons call their chief. He figured the son of the Alpha would be really big and strong and impressive, just like the Alpha."

"So now he despises me, right?" Hiccup said disconsolately.

"No, I think he respects you even more, because you don't fit the mold, but you're still alive anyway," Ruff answered. "He says he's going to have to re-think the war against humans, now that he knows what we're really like."

"That's good news," Hiccup thought out loud. "The only problem is that, if he's getting all his facts about humans from you guys, he probably has some twisted ideas about what's 'normal' for us."

"For us, twisted _is_ normal!" Tuff shouted.

"No argument, but do we _really_ want all the dragons to think every human is like _you_ two?" Hiccup asked.

"Yeah, he's right," Ruff decided. "They need to know there's _nobody_ like us! We're the best, with no competition!"

"That's not quite what I meant, but we'll go with it for now," Hiccup said. "Next question. When you guys were fishing, how come Tuff didn't eat any?"

"Yuck! Raw fish is disgusting!" Tuff burst out.

"I'll agree with that," Hiccup nodded, recalling sharing a fish with Toothless in the cove not so long ago. "Ruff, raw fish doesn't bother you?"

"When I'm a person, yes. When I'm a dragon, not so much. You could say they're slimy, but satisfying."

Hiccup decided not to pursue that. He suspected that they might not give him a straight answer; Tuffnut, in particular, could be the lyin' king when he wanted to be. "Okay, next question. Did Toothless tell you guys anything interesting overnight?"

"Oh, yeah!" Tuff exclaimed. "He showed us how to take off without jumping off a cliff. Now, we're almost as awesome when we're a dragon as we are when we're humans! And he told us some stuff about how dragons live that could make your hair stand on end. And there are other kinds of dragons that never come to Berk, but they're amazing! One of them has a horn like –"

"Look, this would all be really interesting, if we were Fishlegs," Ruff cut in, "but this dragon's claws are digging into my underarms. Can you find a place to put us down, and then let us ride the dragon with you, instead of hanging underneath him?"

"I don't think there's any land between here and where we're going," Hiccup admitted. "You're just going to have to hang for a while."

"Usually, hanging out is cool, but not doing it this way," Ruff complained. "I can't _do_ anything. I can't even reach my brother to kick him in the shins!"

Hiccup felt his dragon shaking slightly, as though two people hanging from his forelegs and hind legs were suddenly trying to kick each other. "Knock it off, you two, or I'll tell Toothless to drop you!" The shaking stopped abruptly. "That's better. Now just relax and enjoy the ride. We're about an hour from the Wild Dragon Cliff. Or maybe two hours, I'm not sure. I've never been there before on a dragon. Actually, I've never been there at all."

"Great," Tuff moaned. "He doesn't know where he's going. We're probably lost."

"I don't know about him," Ruff offered, "but I trust his dragon to know the way. You've got to admit, this Night Fury is pretty cool, especially once you get to know him."

"Ruffnut, for once, you said something that I totally agree with," Hiccup nodded. That stunned the twins into silence. They were still silent half an hour later when they got their first view of the gray, foreboding Wild Dragon Cliff.

"Does anybody see any signs that there's a person living on top?" Hiccup asked.

"No, but that dragon that's coming to meet us looks pretty awesome," Ruff suggested. The dragon in question was about Toothless' size, but much more sinister in appearance. Even in the pale daylight, it seemed to glow with its own bluish-purple light. It was closing in on them fast, _very_ fast.

"Look out! We're going to crash!" Tuff shouted. The dragon was going to pass underneath them, but _way_ too close! The twins tucked up their legs, and the unknown dragon whipped by them so close, they felt its slipstream. Toothless veered to the left, unable to change course easily due to the weight of his three passengers. The unknown dragon turned on its tail and pulled up on their right, and the two dragons had a fierce-sounding conversation.

"Can you guys understand what they're saying?" Hiccup asked.

"Yeah, that's easy," Ruff answered contemptuously. "They're saying, 'Rah rah growl snap-snarl rowr'."

"No, the last word was a 'rahr'," Tuff corrected her.

"It was a 'rowr'!"

"It was a 'rahr'!"

"It was not!"

"It was too!"

"What do _you_ know?"

While they argued, the mystery dragon peeled off to the right, toward the cliffs. Toothless followed it. They were headed for one cave in particular. It wasn't larger or more ominous than the others, but judging by its smoothed-out rock edges, it got a lot more traffic from the dragons.

"It looks like Toothless knows where to go," Hiccup commented. "I just hope it's where _we_ want to go. I guess we're about to find out."


	15. Chapter 15

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 15_

The two dragons landed just inside the well-worn cave. Toothless had to drop his two dangling passengers first; the twins landed awkwardly and rolled to the side so the Night Fury wouldn't land on top of them. They were brushing themselves off as Hiccup slid off his dragon and stretched his legs after their long flight.

The mystery dragon suggested, with a head gesture and a snarl, that they should follow him. He led the black dragon and the three humans into a maze of twisty little passages, all alike, and all very dark. The unknown dragon's blue-glowing skin was their only light source, and that wasn't much. But he shed enough light that they could follow him. At last, he brought them into an enlarged chamber, somewhere deep inside the cliff. Some small holes in the ceiling let in enough light for them to see.

An assortment of dragons were sleeping around the edges of the chamber. The glowing dragon ambled over to an empty spot, lay down, and was soon asleep like the others. In the middle of the chamber was a half-sized version of Hiccup's father's house, perfectly reproduced down to the last detail. Only the door was close to human-sized, but while it was big enough to admit an adult, that adult would probably have to bend over to get through. It was such an incongruous sight, inside a cave and surrounded by sleeping dragons, that Hiccup just stood and stared at it for a few seconds.

"What's the matter, haven't you ever seen a house before?" Tuff demanded.

"I've seen _that_ house lots of times, but I never saw it _here,"_ Hiccup tried to explain. Ruff was preparing a stinging comeback when the door opened and a tiny, ancient man stepped out. His hair was completely white, he walked with a cane, and his head barely came to Hiccup's shoulders. He didn't look especially dignified or noble; he just looked very, very old. Yet that in itself was so unusual among the hard-living Vikings that it muzzled all of the twins' clever comments. They all just looked at each other for the space of three breaths.

Then the man spoke to Hiccup. "Do I know you?"

"I haven't seen you in many years, grandfather," Hiccup answered. "I'm Hiccup III."

"Oh! Yes, so you are!" the old man said, reaching up to give Hiccup's cheek a pinch. "You've grown quite a bit, haven't you? You still aren't built like your father, I see. But he never found me here, and you did, and that's really something." He gestured at Toothless. "Is this your dragon?"

"Well... he's not really _mine,_ but we have an understanding. We're friends." Toothless stepped up and sniffed the ancient man, and seemed to approve of him.

"That's good, that's very good," the man nodded. "No one can really own a dragon; they're too free-spirited, too strong-willed. I have an understanding with these dragons here," and he swung his arm to point at all the sleeping dragons, "but none of them are mine. I see you've taken after your mother and not your father, and I can't say that's altogether a bad thing. I was always proud of Stoick, but there's more to life than bulging muscles. Oh, listen to me talk! You've obviously had a long trip. Would you like to come inside and rest a bit?"

"Uhh, sure. Can my friends come, too?"

"Of course they can! Any friend of yours is someone I'd like to meet. All of you, please come in!" He led them into the house, which consisted of one room. They ducked their heads to get through the doorway (except for Tuffnut, who managed to hit his head again); when the man had built this house, he obviously built it for people of his own height. They took seats around the firepit, and the old man gave each of them a mug of cold water to drink. After a few silent seconds, Hiccup decided that somebody needed to say something.

"Okay. Grandfather, this is Ruffnut and Tuffnut, my friends from Berk. Guys, this is Old Wrinkly, my grandfather, the one you came to see. Before we go any further, Grandfather, can I ask how you live here?"

"Quite comfortably," the ancient man smiled. "I'm out of the wind, I don't get the worst of the cold, and none of those other irritating Viking tribes bother me with their raiding and their tiresome boasting anymore. It's a pretty nice place for an old man to retire to."

"I meant, how do you get your food and water? You're here, deep inside this cave, there's nothing else around except dragons... how do you do it?"

"Oh, I don't," Old Wrinkly exclaimed. "I don't have to. The dragons do it for me. They bring me some fish every day, and some wood to keep my fire going. They also brought me the timbers and boards from shipwrecks so I could build my house. One of those side passages leads down to a freshwater spring, so I've got more water than I'll never need. It's quite a comfortable life for an old man, really."

"Wow," Hiccup intoned. "And... what do you do for the dragons?"

"I keep them company," the old man said matter-of-factly. "I think they like having a human around, though I can't say why – after all these years, I still can't speak their language. I scratch them where it itches, and I help the Nadders stay clean and shiny, and sometimes I can doctor them when they're injured, but mostly, we just keep each other company."

"Wow," Hiccup said again.

"Umm, this is all very interesting, but..." Ruff began.

"Oh, yeah, sorry. My friends, here, have a problem we think you can help solve."

The old man scratched his chin. "I haven't done any problem-solving in a very long time, Hiccup III. Most of the time, when I tried it, either I made things worse, or people didn't listen."

"I know how that feels," Hiccup nodded. "But we think you might know something about this problem. They've got the Dragons' Justice."

That got the old man's full attention. "Dragons' Justice? I haven't run into that one since before you were born, Hiccup." He turned to Ruff and Tuff. "What kinds of dragons do you turn into?"

"A Zippleback," Ruff replied.

"A _Hideous_ Zippleback," Tuff added.

"Now, now, please skip the insults," Old Wrinkly scolded him, wagging a bony finger. "Zipplebacks aren't any less appealing than other kinds of dragons, and I'm sure _they_ think _we're_ pretty hideous in our own way. So you both turn into one dragon? That means the same dragon bit both of you. I suppose you don't _want_ to turn into a dragon for life?"

"No!" "No!"

Old Wrinkly nodded. "At least you agree on that. Good. If you were divided, that would complicate things." He looked them up and down for a few seconds, as though searching them for scales or wings. "It's rather simple, actually. All you need is a bit of the hair of the dragon that bit you. I'm surprised they don't teach this stuff in Dragon Training anymore. Oh, these decadent times! What is the world coming to?" He turned to Hiccup. "I don't mean to be rude, but I don't get company very often, and you've worn me out already. Would you mind terribly if I took a short nap? We can visit some more afterward." Without waiting for a reply, he lay down on his narrow bed, covered himself with a well-worn quilt, and was asleep in seconds.

Tuff was about to say something, but Hiccup made a "shh!" gesture and nodded toward the door. They all stepped outside and closed the door before Tuff finally burst out, "What a stupid piece of advice! We came all the way here for _that?"_

"Yeah," his sister added. " 'A bit of the hair of the dragon that bit you?' Everybody knows dragons don't even _have_ hair!"

"No, guys, wait a second," Hiccup exclaimed. "When they say, 'hair of the dog that bit you,' that means you cure a hangover by drinking some more of whatever made you drunk. So when he says, 'hair of the dragon that bit you,' that must mean you need to find the dragon that bit you, and get it to bite you again."

The twins stared at him uncomprehendingly. "What does being drunk have to do with dragons?" Ruff asked.

"They both start with D-R," Tuff suggested.

"Guys, forget about the drunk part," Hiccup pleaded. "My grandfather says you need to find the Zippleback that bit you. That's your answer."

"Then why did he say the stuff about hair?" Tuff demanded.

"That's just the way he talks," Hiccup tried to explain. "He never comes right out and says what's on his mind. It's his way of finding out who's smart and who's stupid – the stupid ones never figure out his clues."

"Then it's a good thing I'm smart," Ruff said smugly.

"I'm smarter!" Tuff said angrily.

"You are not!"

"I am too!"

"GUYS!" Hiccup shouted. "You can work this out on your own. I've got to get home before the sun goes down, or my dad will wonder where I've gone. For the first time in my life, he's starting to think I can do something right, and I do _not_ want to disappoint him or tick him off!"

"You aren't going with us?" Ruff exclaimed.

"I can't," he replied. "I'd love to help, but I've done all I can do. Gobber needs me in the forge, and Dragon Training is still going on, and Dad... expects me to be around. I wish you well, and I hope I see you again... as two humans. But I've got to get going."

"Wait!" Tuff said urgently. "How are we supposed to find the dragon that bit us? He could be anywhere!"

"I don't know for sure," Hiccup said reluctantly, "but the first place I'd look would be Helheim's Gate. That's where most of the dragons live."

"What good is that?" Ruff spat. "Your dad has been trying to get into Helheim's Gate for years, and all he ever got was sunk ships and dragon-fire burns! Nobody can get in there!"

"Dragons can get in there," Hiccup said, "and you guys will be a dragon again soon. You can do something that my dad can't do – you can fly! For you, getting in will be easy."

The twins stared at each other. "He's right." "Yeah, we can do that."

Hiccup stepped up to them, looking oddly serious. "You two were never my best buddies, but I don't want anything bad to happen to you. Please... be careful."

"Yeah, we'll do that," Ruff nodded.

"No, we won't," Tuff corrected her. "Doing things the crazy way has always worked for us! Why should we change now?"

"Because you'll be messing with a nest full of wild dragons," Hiccup reminded them. "I don't think dragons like 'crazy.' Take it easy, get yourselves healed, and then..."

"And then, what?" Ruff asked.

"I just had a thought," Hiccup answered. "If you find that dragon, and he bites you again and turns you back into people, how will you get home again? What will you do?"

"Eh, probably something stupid," Tuff assured him.

"I think you already did that; that's why you're turning into a dragon," Hiccup commented.

"Then, something crazy," Ruff said.

"I still think that's a bad idea, but if that's what you have to do, then I hope it works," Hiccup nodded. He climbed onto Toothless' back and they flew back the way they'd come.

 **o**

 _A/N_  
 _At some point just before this chapter was posted, this story reached the 3000-hit mark. That means this tale will soon pass the hit count of "For the Love of Two" (my only "Corpse Bride" fic) and then will try to pass my #1 one-off fic, "Calling the Bluff." I guess that's not bad for a fanfic that doesn't star Hiccup or Toothless. To all the fans who are doing that reading: thank you._


	16. Chapter 16

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 16_

When Old Wrinkly awoke from his nap about an hour later, he expected his human guests to have gotten tired of waiting and moved on, and he was right. That's how it usually worked with those impatient young folk, and he'd found that it was an effective tactic for getting rid of people he didn't really want to deal with. That meant just about everybody. He'd had enough of the Vikings' impatience and their rudeness and their know-it-all attitude. Hiccup III, at least, was willing to admit he didn't know everything, and ask for help politely, but even he could wear an old man out sometimes. As for the rest of them... he preferred the company of dragons.

To his surprise, his company of dragons had grown by one. There was an unfamiliar Zippleback standing in front of his door. The other dragons didn't seem curious about him, or maybe they'd sated their curiosity while he was still asleep. The ancient man and the two-headed dragon sized each other up.

"You're a new one here," he began. "Are you looking for some... no, wait. Are you the one who turns into human twins?" Both heads nodded. "Did you understand the advice I gave you?" They both nodded again, not quite so sure of themselves. "That's good, and I'll admit, it's unusual, too. So why are you still here, instead of pursuing your quest?"

The two heads made a show of looking in every possible direction, then looking at Old Wrinkly with a puzzled expression. "Oh, you don't know the way out of here?" One head nodded "yes" and the other shook its head "no."

"That's not much help, you know. Do the two of you always disagree like that? No, no, let me think. Humans can be jerks like that, but dragons don't usually act that way. Is one of you saying, 'Yes, you're right, I don't know the way,' and the other one is saying, 'No, I don't know the way'?" Both heads nodded. "Well! Why didn't you say so? Bane, can you show this fine Zippleback the way out of our home?" The blue glowing dragon awoke, shook its head distractedly, and stalked wordlessly toward one of the exits.

"Don't mind Bane," he said to the Zippleback. "He isn't much for talking, unless he can get his favorite algae for supper, and that happens only once every ten years. He's got a good heart, though. Just don't come between him and his algae." The glowing dragon headed for the exit without looking back. The Zippleback followed.

"Have a nice trip," Old Wrinkly said softly. "I hope you get home all right." Then he returned to his home. It was almost supper time.

Ruff and Tuff followed the glowing dragon, slowly falling behind but never losing sight of it, until they could see the glow of fading daylight. Their guide turned and ambled back into the caverns without even making eye contact.

"Thanks," Ruff called.

"Don't mention it," the dragon answered just before it turned a corner and disappeared.

"Now what do we do?" Tuff asked.

"I don't think we can find Helheim's Gate in the dark, so let's find a place to sleep, and we'll go looking in the morning." Ruffnut was already looking all around in search of a suitable place for a big dragon to spend the night.

"How about one of those caves?" Tuff suggested. "There are lots of them."

"Yeah, but like Hiccup said, they call this the Wild Dragon Cliff for a reason! All those caves probably have dragons in them already!"

"Yeah, but we're a dragon, so maybe they'll let us borrow a spare room for the night or something!" Tuff reached his neck around and called into the cave next door, "Hey! Is anybody in there?"

"Yes!" came a low, threatening reply. "Is there a problem?"

"We just need a place to crash for the night, that's all."

"Glad to hear it," came the low voice. "I hope you find a place, but this isn't it. Now go away and let me sleep."

"Sheesh! Don't kill us with kindness," Tuff complained as he pulled his head back. "I'll try another cave, but I need you to fly us up to one."

"Tuff, don't you ever learn?" Ruff demanded. "We got into this mess because we stuck our noses into a dragon's cell. We got caught because we stuck our noses into another dragon's cell. Now you want us to stick our noses into some _more_ dragon's cells? Seriously?"

"Hey, what's the worst that could happen?" Tuff said brightly. "We've already been transformed, we've already gotten caught... there's nothing else that could go wrong! Right?"

"Wrong!" Ruff countered. "We could get in a fight and get hurt, we could tick somebody off and get killed, we could stick our heads in a girl's cave just when her mate shows up and make him really jealous... shall I go on? It's a really bad idea!"

"Okay, what's _your_ plan?"

After five seconds of thoughtful silence, Ruff grumbled, "I just know I'm going to regret this." She flapped them up to a nearby cave that looked like their size.

"Is anybody home?" Tuff called.

"Yes, but I'm trying to... hey, wait a minute," called a female voice. After a few seconds, two green Zippleback heads appeared out of the darkness of the cave. Both heads locked eyes with Tuffnut, and their eyes went wide. The left-hand head exclaimed, "A _male!"_

"Yeah, I suppose I am," he nodded, "but –"

"Male Zipplebacks aren't so common in this part of the world," the right-hand head of the other dragon said excitedly. "We haven't been on a mating flight in years!" The heads separated so they could view Ruff and Tuff from both sides at once. "You're a good-looking specimen, too. What do you say? Do you want to soar up to the clouds together and make some eggs with us?"

"Uhh... you mean...?" Tuff stammered. "I'm really not into reptiles, but thanks for the offer."

"What do you mean, you aren't into reptiles?" the left head exclaimed. "You _are_ a reptile!"

"Well, I am, but I'm not. It's complicated."

"Hey, do I have any say in this decision?" Ruff interjected.

Both heads of the other dragon pulled back in shock. "Hey, handsome, your other head is a _female!"_ the right head whispered.

"Yeah, I noticed that, too," he nodded.

"How is that possible?" the left head hissed. "Who ever heard of a dragon that's completely male _and_ completely female at the same time?"

"Well, that's what we are," Ruff said firmly.

"Wow," said the right head. "That would be kind of kinky. I mean, I'm into reptiles just fine, but I like male reptiles, not females. I'm not even curious about that."

"Likewise," the left head said. "Still, I suppose we should be open-minded. They say times are changing. After all, _we're_ both female, and we don't have any problems getting along with each other."

"But we don't mate with each other!" the right head protested. "It's not the same thing at all!"

"True... but wait!" the left head burst out. "What if that dragon isn't a male where it counts? There's no point in going on a mating flight if he can't fertilize our eggs, right? The heads are mixed, but the body has to be one or the other, doesn't it? What if he is really a she?"

"I guess you're right," said the right head. "I was just assuming he was male because the male head did the talking at first. Maybe we should ask him. I mean her. I mean them." They turned to speak to Ruff and Tuff... and Ruff and Tuff were gone.

"Darn it," both heads said disconsolately as they returned to the darkness of their cave.

High above them, Ruff and Tuff were circling the Wild Dragon Cliff. "Thanks for flying us out of there," Tuff said with feeling. "I think I owe you one."

"No problem! I don't even want to _guess_ how that might have played out if we'd stayed," Ruff said with a shiver.

"I always dreamed about pretty girls coming on to me," Tuff nodded, "but _that_ was definitely not it! What do we do now?"

"We'll sleep on the top of the cliff," Ruff decided. "It won't be cozy, and we'll get wet if it rains, but we should be safe from lovesick dragons there. And, Tuff?"

"Yeah?"

"The next time I tell you something is a really bad idea, you _listen,_ okay?"

"You're no fun!"

"I don't care," she snapped. "I'm trying to keep us both out of trouble!"

"Since when did you want to stay out of trouble?" Tuff demanded. "Now that you're a dragon, you're getting... I hate to say it, but you're getting boring, tame, and predictable."

He braced himself for her vicious comeback, but there was none. "Maybe I am," she finally said. "But if that keeps us both alive, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Is it?"

"I don't know," he said, staring at the ground. "That sounds too much like thinking, and I'm still allergic to that."

"Then why are you using fancy words like 'predictable' and 'allergic'?" Ruff demanded. "You're thinking a lot more than you used to. Being a dragon is changing you, too!"

"Yeah, okay, maybe you're right," he finally nodded. "Can we get some sleep before I have to think about how much I'm thinking?"

"Sure." She landed them on the top of the cliff, he walked them around until they found a sheltered spot behind some rocks, and they laid their necks on their back and slept.

 **o**

 _A/N  
The scene with the female Zippleback was inspired by "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," and is a mash-up of the three-headed-giant scene and the Castle Anthrax scene._


	17. Chapter 17

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 17_

 _A/N  
There is a high likelihood that this story will pass the 4000-hit mark as a result of people reading this chapter. To all my readers: thank you, thank you very much._

 **o**

When Ruff and Tuff woke up the next morning, their first thought was food.

"This could be a problem," Ruff noted. "Where are we going to get our breakfast? We usually steal fish from the Vikings, but this is the Wild Dragon Cliff. I _really_ don't think we want to steal fish from other dragons, and I don't want to go all the way back to Berk."

"We got a great breakfast by picking up Toothless' leftovers," Tuff nodded, "but he's not here. Our fires won't help us catch any fish – they don't work that way."

"So... what are we going to do?" Ruff asked. "Go hungry? We might have to stay that way for a long while."

"No, wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm thinking of something..." Ruff waited while he thought. "It had something to do with Hiccup's map, but I can't remember what it was."

Ruff tried to remember what she'd seen of his map, and her brother's comment gave her a clue. "Hey! This cliff is part of the Visithugs' island! I bet the Visithugs have some fish we could steal!"

"Yeah! That's what I was trying to think of!" Tuff exclaimed. Then his face fell. "But it's daylight, so they can see us and throw pointy things at us. I don't think we want that."

"What if we were really, really sneaky?" Ruff wondered.

"Hiding a sixty-two-foot-long, two-headed dragon will take some major-league sneakiness," Tuff commented.

She smirked. "We can do that. We can make our own smoke screen, remember?"

He matched her smirk. "Yeah! I'm with you all the way!"

"That's good, because I can't go far without you," she said as they took wing.

They flew until they found a Viking village on the shore, then circled it at high altitude until they figured out where the fish-drying racks were. Then they headed out to sea toward the east, dove to wave-top height, and glided back, keeping themselves between the island and the rising sun so the Visithugs would have a hard time seeing them. They landed next to the fish racks, and Ruff immediately blew out a cloud of green gas to hide them.

"Great job, sister! Now grab those fish!"

"You have to grab them!" she retorted. "I need to keep my mouth empty so I can make more smoke when we need it."

"But I hate raw fish!" he protested.

"How do you feel about nets and spears?" she asked. They could hear the shouts and battle cries of Vikings running toward them. She blew some more gas into her cloud, but the sea breeze was dissipating it faster than she could thicken it.

"Fine, all right," he muttered and siezed a fish off the racks. He forced himself to gag it down, then repeated his performance with a second fish. "Bleah! That's awful!"

"You better eat faster! I'm almost out of gas," she warned him.

"Then we'll both grab a mouthful and go!" he exclaimed. "We'll eat them later." He grabbed a mouthful, she exhausted her gas supply and snatched a partial mouthful of her own, and they made a clean getaway. A handful of spears and bolas flew out of the cloud toward them, but the weapons weren't aimed and they all missed.

"Can you fpark my gaff cloud an' teash dem a leffon?" she said through a mouthful of fish.

"Mmmf! Mm-mm," her brother answered – his mouth was even more full.

"I gueff not," she grumbled. They flew out to sea until the angry Vikings on the shore were just tiny dolls waving toothpicks at them, then turned back and found a desolate stretch of shore where they could drop their fish and consume them in peace. They enjoyed a leisurely breakfast. Well, "they" was a misnomer. Tuff let Ruffnut do all the eating; he knew he'd feel full when she was done anyway.

"Now we need to find that place Hiccup told us about, the place his dad is always going with three ships and coming back with one."

"Hmmm." Ruffnut thought. "Helheim's Gate wasn't on Hiccup's map, because nobody knows exactly where it is. But there was a spot in the north that didn't have any islands, just the words, 'Here Be Dragons.' I bet that's where we want to look."

"So we want to fly north, right? No,wait – we went northwest to get to this place, so now we want to go east, right?"

Ruff glanced at her brother's head, surprised. "You know, for a dumb brother, you're getting kind of smart. Yeah, I think we should go east." They pointed themselves toward the morning sun, gained some altitude, and took a long, relaxed flight together. They knew they might not be so relaxed when they reached their destination, but that didn't stop them from enjoying the simple pleasures of flight.

After about two hours, Tuff asked, "What is it that we're looking for?"

"I don't know," Ruff shrugged. "Someplace with dragons on it, I guess. I'm hoping we'll know it when we see it."

"This whole expedition is starting to feel like something Hiccup invented," Tuff grumbled as they flew on. They traced a giant zigzag pattern in the air, so they could cover a bigger area with their search.

Hours later, long after the sun went down, they noticed a fog-wreathed volcano off to their left. Dragons were swarming around it.

"We came all this way to find a dragons' nest," Tuff replied. "That looks like a nest to me. Let's check it out."

"If this works out like all your other great ideas worked out, then I'm going to regret this," she half-heartedly agreed. They banked to the left and approached the mysterious-looking island. They joined the flock of dragons that was spiraling into a tiny hole in the side of the volcano.

"Yeah, we found it," Tuff agreed. "Even if this isn't Helheim's Gate, it's still worth a look. Let's go in!"

"Hold it!" she ordered. "Every time you get excited about something to do with dragons, it turns into a disaster. When you say, 'Let's go in,' that makes me want to _not_ go in!"

"Okay, what's _your_ plan?" he asked.

"I'm really starting to hate that question," she groaned as she flew them into the hole in the wall of the volcano.

This time, though, it looked like they had found what they came for. The volcano's inner wall was pockmarked with caves and ledges, as were two huge rocky spires that rose up out of the mist that hid the bottom from view. Most of those caves and ledges were occupied by dragons of various kinds. Ruff and Tuff had to forcibly remind themselves that the dragons wouldn't attack them, because they themselves were also a dragon. They slowly spiraled down around the outer wall, trying to see as much as possible. They noticed that most of the other dragons were carrying prey of various kinds, which they were dropping into the mist.

"You realize, Chief Stoick would give his right leg to see what we're seeing," Ruff commented.

"And he'd give his left arm to kill them all," Tuff added.

"Then he'd be just like Gobber," she replied. "That would be bad."

"Yeah, one Gobber is enough," he agreed. "What do we do now?"

"We try to find the Zippleback who bit us," Ruff said. "Then we have to talk him into undoing it so we can be people again."

"Toothless didn't think we'd have much luck with that," Tuff recalled.

"Toothless doesn't know everything," she replied. "At least, I hope he doesn't. We came a long way to get healed, and we don't have any other plans if this one doesn't work, so everything depends on him being wrong."

"That looks like a good place to start," her brother suddenly exclaimed. Just above the mist line, at the base of one of the spires, was a big semicircular cave. It looked like the remnant of a huge bubble of gas in the rock from long ago. They could see at least three Zipplebacks resting there; it was hard to count them in the darkness when so many necks and heads were involved.

"Yeah, it does," she nodded. "All or nothing, here we go!" They spiraled down and landed on the edge of the cave. The three Zipplebacks suddenly woke up and stared at them curiously.

"Hi, I'm Ruffnut, and he's Tuffnut," she blurted out. "Did any of you bite a couple of Viking teen-agers about a week ago?"

"Do you always start a conversation that way?" the nearest one asked. That one was clearly a female.

"We were never any good at manners," Tuff answered. His male voice instantly got the attention of all six heads. "But we really need to find the dragon that bit us."

"So... that couple of Viking teen-agers is really _you?"_ another one asked. "You're Vikings who got Dragons' Justice, and you have the _nerve_ to enter our nest?"

All of a sudden, those six Zippleback heads looked very, very hostile.


	18. Chapter 18

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 18_

The heads of the other three Zipplebacks began to growl. "Vikings? Here? In the middle of our nest?" snarled the one who seemed to be the leader. "You've got some nerve!"

"We're not Vikings! We're a dragon!" Ruff exclaimed.

"Yeah! Do we look like Vikings?" Tuff added desperately.

"You just admitted that you used to be Vikings," said the one on the right. "We don't like Vikings in these parts."

"Whoa! You guys don't even know us!" Ruff gasped.

"Know you?" snarled the leader. "I don't have to _know_ you – you're all the same! Spineless, savage, spear-throwing dragon killers, incapable of any feeling!" She took a threatening step toward them, as did the one on the right. Tuff backed off, but he was almost out of room in the cave entrance; one more step back and they'd have to fly or they'd fall.

The Zippleback in the middle of the cave began to laugh. With both heads.

The right head of the one on the left whipped around to stare. "Do you think this is funny? We've got us some real live dragon slayers, right in the middle of our nest, and all you can do is laugh?"

"This is too perfect!" the left head of the laughing one said. "Oh, the irony!"

"It's the ultimate Dragon's Justice!" the right head added. "They were supposed to get killed by other Vikings once they turned into a dragon, but..." She broke off snickering.

"But they're going to get killed by another dragon instead," the leader's left head finished. "Yes, we can see the irony. But we need to deal with the immediate threat first."

"We're not a threat!" Ruff cut in.

"Yeah" Tuff added. "We never killed a dragon in our lives!"

"Liars!" the left-hand dragon accused them. "You were Vikings! All Vikings kill dragons! Every dragon knows that!"

"And you laugh while you're doing it!" added her other head.

"We were too young for that!" Tuff shot back. "We never got a chance to kill any dragons!"

"Too young?" the leader scoffed. "How old are you?"

"We're fifteen," Ruff answered.

"Fifteen? That's old enough," the leader's other head chimed in. "As a dragon, you'd reach adulthood at age three!"

"A three-year-old Viking barely knows how to talk," Tuff retorted. "Fifteen is old enough to start Dragon Training, but you can't join a warband until you're sixteen, unless you're really good."

"Are you telling us you've never killed a dragon in your lives?" demanded the one on the right. "You never even tried?"

"We never got the chance," Ruff tried to explain. "All we ever did was fight fires. We started Dragon Training the day we got bitten, but after the first two lessons, we started turning into a dragon too much, and then we got caught letting one of the dragons out, and then we –"

"That would be the Zippleback who bit you, right?" asked the one in the middle.

"No, we let that one out first, by accident," Tuff admitted. "Then we let out a Monstrous Nightmare who said he'd teach us how to fly, but he just took off and left us."

"Wait, wait, wait," said the leader, shaking her heads in confusion. "Are you telling us that you never killed a dragon, but you let two dragons escape captivity?" The twins both nodded. The leader stepped closer to them, but it didn't seem like such a hostile gesture, so they didn't back off. Each head stared in one of the twins' eyes for a few seconds. The twins were used to playing staredown with each other, so they glared back.

At last, the leader backed away. "I think they're telling the truth," she told her friends. "They've helped more dragons than they've harmed. What we have here is the _worst_ pair of Vikings ever!"

"Hey!" Tuff protested. "We aren't as bad as Hiccup!"

The one in the middle continued to laugh. "If they're that awful as Vikings, then maybe they'd be more of a help to us than a danger! Maybe I should change them back and send them home to their village, and see what else they can do for dragonkind!" That brought a snicker from the others.

"Are... are you the one who bit us?" Tuff asked her.

"What's the matter? Don't you recognize me?" she demanded.

"Honestly, we weren't so good at telling one dragon from another as humans," Ruff admitted. "You were the only Zippleback we ever met, until we turned into one."

The one in the middle stepped toward them and stopped a few feet away. "You've shaped up into a pretty good dragon, though. You've learned to fly, you've apparently learned to feed yourselves, and you've learned the hardest lesson of all."

"Making fire?" Tuff asked.

"Finding this place?" Ruff wondered.

"No, the hardest lesson is for two separate personalities to learn how to share one body without killing each other or going insane," the Zippleback replied.

"That wasn't so hard," Ruff said. "We were almost used to that anyway."

"How can that be?" wondered the leader.

"We're twins," Tuff told her. "We do everything together, we share everything together. We always have."

"We drive each other nuts sometimes," Ruff added, "but we'd never kill each other. Beat each other up, yes, but kill? Never."

"Probably never," Tuff clarified.

"Really? That's different," said the one on the left. "We thought Viking society was all about fighting each other for dominance, and clawing your way to the top."

"Isn't it true that, if your tribe loses its Alpha, two or more men will fight for the right to become the next Alpha?" asked the leader.

"Yeah, but they almost never kill each other," Ruff replied. "Usually, they fight until one of them draws first blood; they stop the fight after that."

"Huh." The dragons seemed confused. "This isn't what we thought humans were like."

"We know the feeling," Tuff nodded. "We've learned a lot about dragons since we turned into one, and everything we knew about you guys was wrong."

"Indeed?" asked the leader. "How did you learn about dragons?"

"From talking to Toothless," Ruff said. At their baffled expressions, she added, "He's a Night Fury." They still looked blank. "You know, the black dragon. He got that name from –"

All the dragons were suddenly talking at once. "The black dragon?" "How did you meet him?" "Where is he?" "Is he all right?" "Why hasn't he come back to us?" "What did he tell you about us?"

"Whoa, whoa, one at a time!" Ruff shouted. As the din subsided, she went on, "We met him kind of by accident. He got shot down by a friend of ours and –"

"I knew it," one head muttered.

"...and that human made friends with him, and –"

"A _human_ made friends with a _dragon?!"_ all six heads burst out at once.

"Yes!" Ruff continued. "We've seen them flying together. Our friend made a new tail for Toothless, to replace the one he lost when he crash-landed. Now they do stuff together and take care of each other. Toothless told us all about it."

That brought silence.

At last, the leader said, "This isn't what we expected from humanity at all."

Her other head asked, "And all of your Viking tribe is okay with this?"

"They don't know about it," Tuff answered. "If they found out, it would probably be really bad for Hiccup."

"Who's Hiccup?" the one in the middle asked.

"He's the one who made friends with Toothless," Ruff replied. "He's the son of our chief. I mean, our Alpha."

"Okay, let me see if I've got this straight," said the leader hesitantly. "You're telling us that there's a human who's the son of a Viking Alpha, and he is risking punishment from his tribe for the sake of a _dragon?_ He's actually helping an injured dragon fly again, even though he might pay a high price for that?" Ruff and Tuff both nodded.

"Are you sure you're telling us the truth?" the one on the right demanded.

"I'm sure they aren't lying," said the leader. "They might be crazy, but we know how rare that is among dragons."

"We get called 'crazy' all the time, but we aren't really, _really_ crazy," Tuff explained. "Everything she said is true."

After a long pause, the one in the middle said, "This stuff you're telling us is totally unexpected. We're going to have to re-think a lot of things, starting with what we're going to do with you."

Her other head added, "Since it looks like we aren't going to kill you just yet, maybe we should introduce ourselves? We're Revenge and Reprisal."

"We're Anger and Anguish," said the one on the right.

"We're Payback and Penance," said the leader.

"We're Ruffnut and Tuffnut," Ruff said.

"Pleased to meet you, I think," said Revenge. "Tell me this, if you would. What do you think of being a dragon?"

"Well, flying is awesome," Ruff began.

"We're both getting smarter, and that's kind of cool," Tuff said.

"Our human sense of smell was nothing compared to what we've got now," Ruff went on.

"Making gas clouds and blowing them up is fun," Tuff added.

"So you _like_ being a dragon?" asked Penance.

They had to stop and think about how to answer that.


	19. Chapter 19

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ __ _Chapter 19_

"So you _like_ being a dragon?" asked Penance.

The twins had to think about how to answer that.

"It's cool, but it's not for us," Tuff finally answered.

Ruff could only nod at that. "It's not who we are."

"What does that mean?" Reprisal asked. "Dragonhood has all these solid advantages, and the only drawback you can think of is this vague, nebulous 'it's not for us'? It sounds like, if you lay down and thought about it for a while, you'd realize that being a dragon is better than being a human!"

"You're just saying that because you _are_ a dragon," Ruff retorted.

"I'm just saying that because I think it's true," Revenge shot back. "We bit you because I wanted to give you a taste of your own medicine. We figured the Vikings would kill you within a few days, and we'd be rid of two dragon-slayers, for the price of a few drops of venom."

"Such a bargain!" exclaimed Payback.

"But you've surprised us," Reprisal went on. "You've actually learned how to survive and function as a Zippleback. That happens only rarely with the one-headed types, but I can't remember _ever_ hearing about two Vikings who got turned into a Zippleback and lived for more than two or three days. What usually happens is the two heads fight each other for dominance, and they forget to watch their backs, and – _bam!_ A Viking gets them, and they never even see it coming. Somehow, you've beaten the odds. Now here you are, a genuine, flying, fish-eating, cloud-sparking Zippleback. You're the real deal! You're a dragon, no different from us." Her nose wrinkled. "Well, except for your aroma. Do you ever bathe?"

"Hey!" Tuff complained. "It was funny the first seventeen times, but give it a rest, okay?"

"There's one other difference," Payback added, with a wink at her friends. "At least part of them is male! We could use a male Zippleback around here, couldn't we, girls?" They giggled.

" _I'm_ not male!" Ruff exclaimed indignantly.

"Maybe you could close your eyes while your other half gets jiggy with one of us," Anger said slyly.

"I am _not_ getting jiggy with a reptile!" Tuff protested. "Not even a little!"

"Your attitude about that will change when you've been among us for a while," Revenge said reasonably. "Give it a little time; you'll completely adjust to your new form, and once you see all of its advantages, then you'll see the advantages of _our_ forms as well, hint hint."

"Why would we want to do that?" Ruff demanded. "Give it time, I mean? Spending time here is _not_ on my bucket list! I want my human body back! That's the whole reason we came here!"

"Are you looking forward to being stuck on the ground, now that you've learned to fly?" Payback asked.

"You said you're getting smarter as a dragon," Anguish said. "Will it be fun to give that up and be not-so-bright again?"

"Are Viking weapons better than an explosive gas cloud that you can make, any time you want, and never drop it or wear it out or leave it behind by accident?" asked Penance.

"It doesn't sound like your Viking life was anything to roar about," Revenge added. "If you stay here, you'll be a special dragon whose talents will be in demand whenever we go out to gather food."

"You mean, to raid a Viking village?" Tuff interjected.

"That's where the food is," Payback said amiably.

"And when we get there," Reprisal went on, "you'll know how to handle any Vikings who get in our way, because you know how they fight! You know their tactics. You could be one of the most important, unique dragons in this whole nest!"

Ruff and Tuff glanced at each other. "Do you think we could take over this place and run things our way?"

The six heads of their guests hissed suddenly, pulled back, and looked around in fear. "Don't say things like that!" Payback whispered at them. "If the Queen hears that kind of talk, she'll eat you alive!"

"Nobody mentioned a Queen before," Ruff thought out loud. "What will she do, burn us? Bite us?"

"No, she will eat you alive," said Reprisal.

" _Really_ eat you alive," Anguish amplified.

"Okay, I think that would be bad," Tuff decided.

Ruff nodded nervously. "Really bad! Where is this Queen?" she wondered.

She got her answer a moment later. From their cave, they could not see the cascades of fish and livestock being dropped from above into the mist. But one offering was displeasing for some reason, and a dragon bigger than half of Berk leaped out of the mist and slammed its jaws shut on an unfortunate Gronckle. Two of the Zipplebacks pressed themselves against the cave wall and tried to look small; Ruff and Tuff threw themselves flat on the cave floor and tried to make themselves even flatter; Anger and Anguish panicked and took wing. The monster sank back into the mist, then re-emerged, sniffed twice, and lunged toward another dragon halfway up the volcano.

"That's Toothless up there!" Ruff exclaimed. The black dragon joined a cloud of other dragons that were fleeing the cavern in a panic. The only reason he got away was that Anger and Anguish accidentally got between him and the Queen, and the Queen bit that unfortunate dragon instead. Both of the Zippleback heads screamed, and then her necks went limp. Ruff and Tuff gasped in horror. That could have been them! The other two averted their eyes.

"Will these horrors never end?" Reprisal whispered.

"I'm going to miss that one more than most of them," Revenge added.

"You're safe as long as you stay here," Penance said to their "guest."

"Safe is good," Ruff agreed with a shiver. "We'll stay for a while."

"Ruff, I thought we weren't going to stay!" Tuff protested. "I thought, if we stayed here, we'd start to think like a dragon, and I'd wind up in bed with one!"

"Would that really be worse than being eaten alive?" Revenge asked.

"How long can I think that over?" Tuff asked earnestly.

"You sure know how to make a girl feel special," Payback lamented.

"Tuff, _nothing_ could be worse than what just happened to that other Zippleback," Ruff decided. "We're staying, at least for the rest of the night. Maybe that Queen will take a nap, now that she's eaten... something, and we can make a break for freedom later."

"You can't make me stay," he warned her. "I control the legs, remember?"

"Yeah, but I've got the wings, and you don't know how to use them," she shot back. "You won't get far without flying."

"Even if you make it out of here without getting eaten, where will you go?" Reprisal asked. "This is the only dragons' nest within a hundred miles of here. You won't last long if you try to live alone; you need someone to cover your tails."

Ruff took a deep breath. "Tuff, I don't want to force you, but I think we ought to spend the night here, talk to these dragons some more about being a dragon, and make a decision in the morning."

Tuff glared at their three hosts. "Is one of you going to jump my bones in my sleep?"

They all laughed. "We only mate in the air," Payback said with a touch of shyness.

"Besides, you have to be completely willing or it doesn't work," Penance giggled.

"My brother is really nervous about this," Ruff told them. "There's no way we can talk you into turning us back into people?"

"We aren't willing to undo what we did," said Revenge firmly. "A dragon in a lair is worth a lot more to me than two Vikings in a village."

Reprisal added, "But we do have an idea for a compromise that you might accept. We need to think about it some more. If you stay, we'll discuss it later. If you leave, the deal is off."

Tuff considered his options and grudgingly muttered, "All right. We'll stay. For _one_ night!"

"A sensible decision," Payback and Penance both nodded. "We've got a few hours before we all settle down for the night. How should we use our time?"

"How about if they tell us about what Vikings are really like?" asked Reprisal.

"Would you do that willingly?" asked Payback.

"Yeah," Ruff said, and Tuff nodded. "We won't give away any battle secrets or anything like that, but we'll tell you what people are really like. I don't have a problem with that."

"Good," nodded Penance. "My first question is, why do you insist on making those flammable wooden fake caves, instead of living in a nice, safe stone cave like a sensible dragon would?"

The other heads burst out with a barrage of questions. "Why do you breed your sheep to be covered with that awful white hair, when they'd be so much easier to eat if they were hairless?" "Is it true that you mate more than once a year?" "Who invented those rock-throwing machines, and where does he live, so we can pay him back?" "If you don't want us to steal your fish, then why do you hang them outside where we can see them and smell them?" "Why do you always call the black dragon 'Night Fury Get Down'?"

"I think we've got a lot to talk about," Ruff commented to her brother.

"Girls like to talk, so go ahead," Tuff said as he stretched his neck out on the rocky floor. "But you have to pinky-swear that you'll wake me up if one of them starts putting moves on me while I'm asleep!"

"Tuff, we don't have pinkies anymore," Ruff reminded him.

"Oh. Yeah," Tuff mumbled. "In that case, good night, and everybody keep your paws off of me." He didn't fall asleep, but lay with his neck flat on the floor and quietly listened to the discussion. It took Ruff nearly two hours to answer all of her hosts' questions. At last, as she was showing signs of falling asleep on her feet, the other Zipplebacks spread out and lay down for the night.

In the morning, they all took breakfast together – the nest's Gronckles stunned a school of fish with fireballs, much the way Toothless did, and all the dragons shared in the bounty. Back in the nest, the Zipplebacks got comfortable in their cave. Their bellies were full and they were in a good mood.

"Now, if you're willing, I'd like to make my compromise offer," Revenge said quietly. "Think it over, and talk about it with each other before you make a decision."

"For Vikings, you seem kind of harmless," Reprisal began. "We aren't willing to put our nest and our friends at risk by doing catch-and-release with Vikings, but we aren't willing to make intelligent beings suffer, either."

"You weren't supposed to live this long," Revenge added. "You could live for centuries, now that you know how to survive as a dragon. That changes things."

"So here's the deal," Reprisal went on. "I'm willing to bite one of your necks, and turn one of you back into a human. The other one will stay a dragon. You two will choose who stays here and who goes home."


	20. Chapter 20

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 20_

"One of us can be human again, but the other one has to stay a dragon?" That stunned the twins into silence.

"That's the deal," Revenge said flatly. "It's either that, or you both stay a Zippleback for life. Be thankful we're even offering you a choice."

Ruff was the first to speak. "If one of us turns human again, how can the other one still be a two-headed dragon?"

"You wouldn't be," Reprisal answered. "The one who stays a dragon will become a Scuttleclaw, which is kind of like half a Zippleback."

"What's a Scuttleclaw like?" Ruff wondered.

"I think I remember Fishlegs saying something about Scuttleclaws once," Tuff said hesitantly. "He said they were really curious and easy to kill. That's why there aren't any Scuttleclaws raiding Berk anymore. They all got killed off years ago."

"So you're setting one of us up to die really fast?" Ruff challenged them.

"We could make _both_ of you die really fast, if that's what you'd prefer," Payback snapped. "Her deal is a lot more generous than anything I'd ever offer you. Don't be an ingrate!"

"Besides, it wouldn't have to be that way," Penance cut in. "There are no Scuttleclaws in this nest at this time, so the ex-human would be the only one. The human one could tell all his fellow-Vikings to leave the Scuttleclaw alone. If you could persuade them, then you could save your sibling's life. Maybe."

"Would our people believe us if we told them?" Ruff asked her brother.

"Gobber might back us up," Tuff replied. "I mean, he knows we turned into a Zippleback, so if we tell him one of us is a Scuttleclaw now, at least he wouldn't laugh at us."

"Would that be good enough?" Ruff wondered. "I don't think Stoick would let us live, no matter who said we're a human in disguise. He hates all dragons. The first time the dragon part of us raided Berk would probably be the last time."

"You don't have to raid this Berk place if you think it's a bad idea," Revenge suggested. "We raid lots of Viking villages. When it's Berk's turn, you could bring back a deer, or a big fish, or something else that you wouldn't have to risk your life for. You wouldn't have to go near the place if you didn't want to."

"Those other Viking villages wouldn't get the word about the dragon who's really a person," Ruff noted.

"But... if the dragon part of us never went to Berk, that would mean we'd never see each other again," Tuff realized. That thought kept them silent and thoughtful for the space of three breaths.

"If I was the dragon, I'd come home now and then, and visit you," Ruff said. "It would have to be at night, so nobody could see me. Maybe I'd even take you for a ride on my back. Would that be cool, or what?"

Tuff smiled at the thought. "That would really boil Hiccup's potatoes! He thinks he's the only dragon rider! Oh, wait – I'd be riding around on my sister's back? That would be kind of weird, wouldn't it?"

"It wouldn't be so weird if I was a dragon," she suggested.

"Do you _want_ to be the dragon?" he asked.

"How can you ask such a stupid question?" she demanded.

"Well, you keep saying how much you love flying," he retorted.

"Yeah, I do," she admitted, "but I'm still a person on the inside. I'd miss flying, but I really miss having fingers, and eating food that's cooked, and being able to kick you without hurting myself."

They were silent for a few more seconds.

"Tuff, you are the biggest pain in the neck... I mean, necks... in the entire Nine Worlds," she said hesitantly. "But I know you hate being a dragon, and I don't want to find out that you got killed by some Viking who didn't know who you were. I'll be the dragon, and you can go home."

"Uh-uh," he disagreed. "You were the smarter one, so you had more of a future than I did. I was just the village idiot, and that's probably all I'd ever be. As a dragon, at least I'm not such an idiot. I'll be the dragon. You can be human again."

"No way, José!" she retorted. "I saw how nervous you were at the thought of mating with a dragon. If you stayed here, you'd have to do that eventually. Me, I'm sick of guys hitting on me because they only want one thing; I could be happy as a female in a place where there aren't any males. You be the human."

"Forget it!" he shot back. "You'd be the only ex-human in the nest, and you'd be the only Scuttleclaw, too. You'd be all by yourself. You'd have no one to beat up, no one to play tricks on, no one to do anything fun with. You'd hate your life within a week! You need to be the human."

"But you'd make a rotten dragon!" she answered him. "You hate to eat raw fish, you don't know how to fly without crashing... you'd be _dead_ within a week! You're not cut out to be a dragon. You take the bite, and I'll stay here."

The other two Zipplebacks were listening to this debate, all four mouths hanging open in stunned amazement.

The discussion was still going strong when they were interrupted by a muffled "bang" from the rock wall on the other side of the cavern. More bangs and thumps followed. All the dragons were getting nervous and preparing for flight. "What do you think it is?" Ruff asked her brother.

She got her answer when one more "bang" collapsed part of the cavern wall. Dim daylight streamed in through the hole. A few seconds later, a flaming something-or-other shot into the cavern, shedding more light than the inside of that volcano had ever seen before.

The result was panic. "Vikings!" dragons shouted. "The Vikings are here!" "They've found us!" "Fly for your lives!" Some dragons streamed out the new hole; others flew out the way they'd come in, higher up the volcano wall, and others went straight out the top of the cone.

"What should we do?" Tuff asked his sister.

"If the Vikings see us, they'll think we're a dragon and they'll kill us," she answered quickly. "We need to get out of here!" They joined the exodus of dragons pouring out the top of the volcano.

Far below, they heard a monstrous bellow, louder than any noise they'd ever heard before. "If that's the Queen, then she sounds mad," Ruff exclaimed.

"Let's put some distance between us and her," Tuff suggested, and that sounded very wise. They gained altitude and circled the island at what felt like a safe distance. Most of the other dragons high-tailed it out of there and were soon lost to sight. They found themselves one of the few aerial observers to a huge battle between Vikings and the Queen, both of whom were intent on killing each other.

"Ruff, look at the designs on those ship shields!" Tuff exclaimed after a few seconds. "They're from Berk! Those are our people!"

"Should we try and help them?" Ruff wondered.

"They'd kill us if we got too close," he answered firmly. "They don't know it's us; they'd see a Zippleback and start throwing stuff at us." A moment later, the Queen set fire to all the ships at once, and the designs on the ship shields were quickly reduced to blistered ashes.

"I think _she'd_ kill us if we got too close, too," Tuff said with a shiver. "We definitely need to keep our distance." They watched as the Vikings scattered, then began running for the far side of the island.

"Don't they know the Queen can follow them?" Ruff asked. Then they noticed two men detach themselves from the group and charge at the monstrous dragon.

"That's Gobber!" Tuff shouted.

"The other one has to be Stoick," Ruff agreed. "Are they being brave, or just stupid?" They looked away as the Queen reared up and prepared to ingest the men... and then everyone was startled by a bright flash of light. The Queen's head was crowned with a fiery blast; she roared in anger.

"Oh... my... gods," Ruff stammered. Two more dragons had joined the battle – with human riders! "That's Hiccup and Astrid on the Nadder," she burst out.

"And Fishlegs and Snotlout are on the Gronckle," her brother added. "How come nobody rode the Monstrous Nightmare?"

"We let it go free, remember?" Ruff retorted.

"Oh, yeah. Now that we aren't the only dragons here, maybe we should try and help our friends?"

"They won't know it's us, you idiot!" she exclaimed. "They'll think we're helping the Queen."

"Hiccup knows we're a Zippleback," Tuff retorted. "He can tell the others we're here to help."

"But how is he going to know it's us and not some other Zippleback?" she demanded. He told her his plan to communicate with him. She gave a dragony shrug. "I hate to admit it, but that will probably work." They changed course and winged toward the dragons and their riders.

Those dragons were flying in a circle; it looked like the riders were having a meeting in the middle of the air. Hiccup was calling instructions to the others (how did _he_ get to be in charge?) when Astrid shouted and pointed at the incoming Zippleback.

"Watch out, everybody!" Hiccup cried. "Hostile dragon incoming!" Ruffnut flew them right up beside the Nadder. She and Tuff glared at Hiccup, made eye contact, and then made an exaggerated show of rolling their eyes at him.

Hiccup stared in disbelief. "Ruffnut? Tuffnut? Is that _you?"_ They both nodded. He shook his head. "Okay, guys, this will take too long to explain, but the Zippleback is on our side." He turned back to Ruff and Tuff. "Fishlegs and Snotlout are going to try and distract that dragon. You guys, see if the thing has a shot limit. Make it mad!"

"I think she's mad already," Ruff answered, but Hiccup couldn't understand her. They watched their two friends trying to guide their Boulder-class mount towards the Queen's head.

"Amateurs," Tuff scoffed. "Show 'em how it's done, Ruff!" She banked sharply, whipped past the Gronckle, and pulled up alongside their enormous enemy's head.

"Troll!" "Butt-elf!" "Bride of Grendel!" they shouted mockingly.

"Toast!" she bellowed back, and shot out a blast of flame that was as big around as they were. Ruff barely rolled them out of the way in time; the fire would have roasted them instantly. They felt the heat as they took evasive action.

"Nice move, Ruff," Tuff said grudgingly. "For a girl." Snotlout and Fishlegs had used the distraction to fly next to the other side of the huge head, where they commenced to beat on their shields with their weapons. This sound was irritating and distracting to all dragons, and that included the Queen... and the Gronckle... and Ruff and Tuff as well.

"Get us away from that racket!" Tuff demanded, but Ruff was already curving away from the Queen, trying to stay clear of that deadly maw. Tuff looked back and saw the distracted Gronckle bump into the Queen; Snotlout went flying and landed on its head, while Fishlegs rode his spinning dragon down to the ground, where he barely avoided being stepped on. Snotlout did what he could, hammering on the Queen's eyeballs with Fishlegs' war hammer, but that was only another irritation to the giant dragon that wanted them all dead, and would probably succeed before the day was over.

Then Ruff saw a black blur rising off the ground, and heard Astrid shouting, "He's up!" That had to be Hiccup on Toothless; she wasn't sure where the black dragon had come from, but he was certainly here now. The Nadder flew next to them for a moment. Astrid hesitantly asked, "If you're on our side, then can you get Snotlout out of there somehow?"

"We're on it!" Ruff exclaimed.

"She can't understand you, dummy!" Tuff shot back. Snotlout was hanging onto one of the Queen's facial projections by one hand, and was perilously close to falling. Ruff guided herself and her brother around in a broad curve that (she hoped) wouldn't attract the Queen's attention. They got under Snotlout just as his grip gave way and he fell screaming... for about eight feet. Then he landed on the Zippleback's broad back, facing backwards and amazed to still be alive. "Got him!" Ruff shouted as she winged them away from that huge head as quickly as she could.

Astrid and the Nadder weren't so lucky; the Queen tried to inhale them alive. Only a well-timed firebolt from the Night Fury stopped the process, and an even better-timed swoop caught the helplessly tumbling Astrid before she became a pancake on the rocks below. Snotlout tried to turn so he could see what was happening around him, and nearly slid off his precarious perch.

"That noob doesn't know anything about how to ride a dragon!" Tuff shouted. "We need to land and drop him off before he _falls_ off!" Ruff nodded and aimed for an open space on the rocky shore, big enough for a Zippleback to make a high-speed landing. Tuff did a good job with their legs, bringing them to a quick stop so Snotlout could jump off, which he did with alacrity.

That was when Ruff and Tuff realized that they had just landed in the middle of a battlefield full of armed, angry Vikings.

Vikings don't like dragons.


	21. Chapter 21

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 21_

"Okay, _now_ what do we do?" Tuff exclaimed. They had just landed in the middle of the biggest warband Berk had sent to war in years. They were surrounded by Vikings brandishing spears, bolas, swords, hammers, axes, and any other implement of mass dragon-destruction the tribe could think of. As humans, they had dreamed of the day when they could take their place in the middle of that warband. Now, they'd achieved their dream, and it was about to become a nightmare.

Ruff tensed their wings, and Tuff was preparing to spring them off the ground, when a rising whistle stopped all activity around them. Everyone looked up to see a tiny black dot plunging earthward, growing larger by the second, until it launched a bright blue firebolt and pulled out of its dive. The firebolt struck the Queen and actually knocked the monstrous dragon over. They all knew how destructive a Night Fury could be, but they'd never seen _that_ kind of power unleashed! Any thoughts of slaying normal-sized dragons were forgotten as they watched the Queen spread her enormous, tattered wings and give chase to the much smaller Night Fury.

"If she wasn't mad before, she's _definitely_ mad now!" Tuff said.

"I'd hate to be in Toothless' boots right now," Ruff added.

"It's a good thing he doesn't wear boots," Tuff commented. The Night Fury was barely able to keep ahead of his huge pursuer. After a few seconds, he arced upwards and led the Queen into the clouds as the Vikings cheered him on. _The_ _Vikin_ _g_ _s_ _were cheering for a_ _dra_ _g_ _on_ _?_ For the next few minutes, all they saw were muted flashes in the clouds, all they heard were muffled blasts and an occasional bellow from the Queen. Whatever was happening up there, it didn't look like Toothless and Hiccup were losing. But what was happening?

"Look!" someone shouted. Toothless was plunging earthward, with the Queen close behind him, _way_ too close. They saw the spark of a close-range firebolt, they saw the Night Fury veer out of the way, and they shielded their eyes and braced themselves as the Queen crashed into the rocks and exploded in a fireball that shook the very ground.

The clouds of dust and ash were settling. The battle was over. Now, where was the victor?

There was no cheering, no shouts of victory. The battlefield had fallen silent. Everyone was staring at something. Ruff and Tuff raised their heads so they could see over the crowd of Vikings. Other dragons were doing the same; some were the ones the teens had ridden, but others were from this nest. All they saw was Toothless, lying half-unconscious on the hard ground. His artificial tail was burnt and bent out of shape, and Hiccup's saddle was torn and... empty.

Tuff began to comment, but Ruff cut him off. "Just don't talk." He shut his mouth. No one else said anything, either, except the chief, who said something to Toothless, very quietly.

Toothless groaned, rolled over, opened his wings... and Hiccup was there! "He's alive! You've brought him back alive!" Now a cheer went up, accompanied by some heartfelt dragon roars.

"Okay, Tuff, you can say it now," Ruff said, relieved beyond words that Hiccup was alive, although she'd never admit it.

"Never mind," Tuff said. "It wasn't funny anyway." He breathed a sigh of relief.

The Vikings were soon busy repairing the least-damaged of their ships, preparing to go back to Berk. The dragons mostly retreated back into the nest; they still weren't convinced that these humans could change from bloodthirsty to peaceful in the space of a few hours. The Zipplebacks gathered in their cave to talk about the many strange things they'd seen today.

"Did I see you two save the life of a Viking?" Revenge asked.

"Yeah," Ruff said. "He's a friend of ours."

"Is he a dragon slayer?" Penance wanted to know.

"He wants to be, or at least he wanted to be, but he never killed one," Tuff answered. "He wasn't any better at it than we were."

"Do all the Viking failures hang out together?" Payback wondered.

"I used to think so," Ruff admitted. "But Hiccup turned out awesome –"

"But don't you tell anyone we said that!" Tuff warned them.

"...and I think we turned out okay, too."

"As a dragon, you mean?" Reprisal asked.

"Uhh... yeah, I guess so," Tuff nodded.

"So maybe you'd like to remain a Zippleback and join our community?" Payback suggested.

"No, one of us is definitely going to be a human again," Ruff said, and Tuff nodded at that, too.

"Okay," Revenge said. "The offer is still open. Who gets the bite that turns you back into a soft, pink, defenseless two-legged life form?"

"He does." "No, she does!" "You take it!" "No, _you_ take it!"

"Hold it!" Payback and Penance said in perfect unison. Payback went on, "I thought neither of you wanted to be a dragon."

"We don't." "That's right."

"So why are you both saying the other one should be the human? If you hate dragonhood, then I'd think you would both want the bite."

The two heads of Ruffnut and Tuffnut glared at each other for a second.

"If he was stuck being a dragon without me, he'd be miserable." "If she had to be a dragon without me, she'd hate it."

"So what you're saying is that both of you are willing to accept a fate that you don't want, just so the other one can be better off?"

"Yeah." "I guess so."

"Seriously?" Penance marveled. "We dragons can be generous, but when the sparks hit the gas, it's usually every dragon for himself. You two would actually sacrifice your own futures for each other?"

"I guess so." "Yeah, I suppose." "But that doesn't mean I'm not going all soft on you!" "You'd owe me one, and don't you ever forget it!"

"Wow," said Payback and Penance in perfect unison. Penance went on, "We thought we had you humans all figured out, but everything we know about you guys is wrong!"

"I think we've changed our minds about our offer," Reprisal added, and Revenge nodded.

"Is that because we can't make up _our_ minds?" Ruff asked, dismayed.

"Or is it because we're such a pain in the neck?" Tuff wanted to know.

"Neither," Reprisal said firmly. "But the phrase 'pain in the neck' is quite appropriate." Both heads of that Zippleback lunged forward, and each one bit one of the necks of Ruff and Tuff.

"Ow!" "Hey, that hurt!" "What did you do that for?" "Oh, I am hurt! I am... well, not very much hurt, but that stings!"

"Between the fact that you're pretty harmless, and the fact that you're so selfless, we don't have the heart to make either of you remain a dragon," Revenge explained. "The reverse dose of venom will take effect in about four hours. That's how long you'll have to wait before you both become human again, for keeps."

"We're... we're _both_ going to be human again?" Ruff wasn't sure she'd heard it right.

"Yes; did I stutter?" Revenge snapped. "Don't tick me off, or I might change my mind!"

"Okay, don't tick off the dragons," Tuff thought out loud. "We can do that for four hours. Ruff, if that's how much time we've got, let's go flying, one last time."

"Even though you can't work the wings?" she asked.

"Flying is cool, no matter who does the flapping," Tuff decided. He sprang, she flapped, and they rose up out of the nest and into clear air.

"I'm going to miss being smart," he said once they were half a mile up.

"I'm going to miss flying," she agreed.

"But being human is what we were born for," he said.

"You'd never be able to convince yourself to mate with them," she decided.

"They wouldn't appreciate our kind of fun," he stated.

"We were born as people, and we ought to live as people," she nodded.

After a long pause, he said, "You know what?"

"What?"

"We're never going to be a dragon again, but we're never going to be dragon slayers, either."

"Yeah, you're right about that," she said. "We know too much about them. I know I don't want to kill them anymore, and I don't think you do, either. Besides, our tribe might be done fighting dragons anyway." She gestured with her head toward the rocky shore below them. A handful of dragons were ambling around, sniffing at Vikings and having their noses rubbed. Gobber was using hand signals to show a Gronckle where to push a partly-repaired longship so it would be easier to fix. Toothless stood vigil near a small tent that probably held Hiccup, while at least a dozen warriors without weapons stared at him from what they thought was a safe distance.

"It sure looks peaceful down there, doesn't it?" he observed.

"Yes, it does," came a voice from right behind them. Revenge and Reprisal had joined them in their flight around the island. "I wonder how long it will last."

"Probably until the next time the dragons raid Berk," Ruff grunted.

"I suppose you're – oh!" Revenge exclaimed. "But we don't have to raid your town again! We only did that to provide enough food for the Queen, and the Queen is dead! We won't raid any more Viking villages anywhere!"

"Ever again!" Reprisal chimed in. "We'd be crazy to try it! Why would we risk getting netted and speared by Vikings when the sea has all the fish we need, free for the taking?"

"I guess that makes sense," Ruff nodded.

"It makes perfect sense!" her brother amplified. "So if people and dragons don't have anything to fight over... then maybe we _can_ learn to be friends."

"Friends?" Revenge had trouble with that. "Humans and dragons as friends? You're asking a lot! That's never been done."

"Yes, it has," Tuff went on. "Hiccup and Toothless are friends. If you look down, you'll see that Fishlegs and that Gronckle are getting along pretty well."

"He's giving it a _belly-rub!"_ Ruff exclaimed with distaste.

"So?" Tuff retorted. "One of the things I hate most about being a dragon is I can't scratch where it itches. Maybe that's something people can do for dragons."

"Do you really think all those dragon-slayers can turn into dragon friends overnight?" Reprisal said doubtfully. "After all the years of hate and fighting and bloodshed? Do you think it can happen?"

"Why not?" Ruff wondered. "When we first met, you were ready to kill us because we used to be Vikings. Now we're flying through the sky together, talking about peace, even though the two of us are about to turn back into Vikings again." She sighed. "I admit, I'm going to miss the 'flying through the sky' part."

"You know, if making friends with Vikings is too hard, you don't have to make friends with all of them at once," Tuffnut suggested. "Just do like Toothless and that Gronckle did. Pick one human and make friends with him. Or her," he added as he saw Astrid doing a quick polishing job on the blue Nadder's leg scales. "We don't have to change the whole world all at once. One human at a time, or one dragon at a time will work just as well."

Revenge and Reprisal looked thoughtful. "Would two at a time work?"

"What do you mean?" Tuff asked.

"You two have opened our eyes to what humans are really like," Reprisal began. "You're a little crazy, but you're good people at heart. Not a bit like what we thought people were like."

"You're right about how we wanted to kill you at first," Revenge went on. "But the compromise deal was our idea, because we realized we were wrong about you. Now we see how _really_ wrong we were, and we'd like to be among the first to start making it right."

Both heads took a deep breath; then Reprisal blurted out, "Can we stay friends, even after you're human again? We can take you flying with us, and you can scratch us where it itches, and... we think it would be better than just going our separate ways."

"We won't be able to talk to each other," Tuff observed.

"I think we'll understand each other well enough," Revenge answered. "We'll find a way to communicate."

"Would you guys be comfortable, living in the town where they kept you prisoner and beat you up for so long?" Ruff wondered.

"It will be a while before we'll even go _close_ to that place where they beat us up," Reprisal said, "but if we can stay on the human side of the town with you, that wouldn't be so bad."

Back and forth they went, discussing the possibilities of humans and dragons living together. They completely lost track of time, until there was a brilliant flash of light, and two thin teen-agers found themselves tumbling out of the sky. They barely had time to draw a breath to scream before the Zippleback had gotten underneath them. Ruff wound up on the right-hand neck, and Tuff landed on the left.

"Thanks, Revenge," she gasped.

"You know, if you're going to stay with us, we have to make a change," Tuff said. "Those names of yours, Revenge and Reprisal... they've got to go. They aren't Viking-like, or gross, or scary, or anything. Can we call you something cool, like maybe... Barf and Belch?"

Revenge, the head Ruff was riding, looked back at him and rolled her eyes.

"I'm thinking that's a 'no'," Ruff decided.

"I'm thinking they were right when they said we'd find a way to communicate," Tuff added. "Maybe this human-dragon friend thing will work, after all."


	22. Chapter 22

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 22_

Tuff reached down and patted his legs, to make sure they were really full-length and non-scaly. "So, now that we're human again, what happens next?" he wondered.

"I guess we have to get the chief's permission to bring our dragon into his village," Ruff thought out loud.

"Are you kidding? How are we going to do that?" Tuff wondered. "We're still wanted criminals. Chief Stoick won't want to do us any favors; he'll probably throw us back in a dragon-holding cell as soon as he sees us!"

"All we can do is ask," she answered. "Maybe we'll even say 'please' and see if that does any good."

"Can we skip asking him, and just bring the dragon home and hide her?" Tuff said.

"Yeah, right – how are we going to hide a Hideous Zippleback?" Ruff demanded. "The chief finds out about everything that happens in the village, and this dragon is even bigger than we were! Where do you think you're going to hide her?"

"Maybe if we painted the dragon white, we could hide her with the sheep?" Tuff suggested. It was his sister's turn to roll her eyes at him. "Well, it was a thought!"

"It was a _terrible_ thought!" she said to him. "You lost your smarts as fast as I lost our wings. You're an idiot again! We're back to normal, all right." She looked down. "Where do you think we should land?"

"Don't ask me. I'm an idiot, remember?" Tuff said bitterly.

"Fine. We'll land next to Astrid and Fishlegs. They've got dragons for friends, too. Maybe they'll be on our side. A little." They nudged the horns of their respective dragon heads and guided Revenge and Reprisal to a fairly smooth landing next to the other two young dragon-riders. Those riders were astonished to see the twins.

"What are you guys doing here?"  
"How did you get here?"  
"Where have you been?"  
"You missed all the excitement!"  
"You know the chief is still mad at you, right?"  
"Where did you get the dragon?"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down!" Tuff exclaimed. "All we want is to get the okay to bring our dragon home, just like you guys. Will you help us?"

"Bring our dragons... home?" Astrid hadn't been thinking along those lines. "I figured these dragons would want to live with all the other dragons, right here."

"The chief would never let us bring dragons into Berk!" Fishlegs added. "You know about him and dragons!"

"The chief likes one dragon," Ruff said, pointing at Toothless. "Maybe he'll like another one."

"Your dragon didn't save his son's life," Astrid pointed out.

"No, but we saved his nephew's life, and that ought to count for something!" Tuff exclaimed.

"What do you mean, 'we' saved Snotlout's life?" Fishlegs queried them. "We were all watching, and your Zippleback did it without any riders."

"Uhh... it's too complicated to explain right now," Ruff said dismissively. "Is the chief in a good mood or a bad mood?"

"He's in a good mood because his tribe won the battle, the queen dragon is dead, and the war with the dragons is over," Fishlegs began.

"...but he's in a bad mood because his fleet is destroyed, Hiccup is badly hurt, and a dragon got more glory from the battle than he did," Astrid finished.

"Maybe we should wait until he's in a better mood before we ask him," Tuff suggested.

That idea was cut short by a loud bellow. "Ruffnut! Tuffnut! What are _you_ doing here?" the chief roared as he strode over to them.

The Zippleback began to growl with both heads, but Ruff motioned for them to back off. "It's okay! We'll work this out." She turned to face Stoick. "Uhh, hi, chief."

"I don't have the time or the patience to deal with you two! You're wanted criminals, for freeing two of the tribe's training dragons. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't tie you up and put you on a bread-and-water diet until I get you home and lock you in a fish warehouse for a month!"

"We saved your nephew's life, so that should make up for one of those dragons," Ruff stammered.

""What do you mean, 'we'?" Stoick demanded.

"Did Gobber tell you what happened to us?" Tuff asked him.

"He said you turned into a..." The chief stopped in mid-sentence. "That was _you two_ up there? Risking your lives to save Snotlout?" They nodded. "But... if that was you, then who... I mean, which dragon is _this?"_ He waved his arm at the huge Zippleback behind them.

"That's the town's training dragon," Ruff exclaimed with a smile. "We're bringing her back to Berk, so that makes up for letting her go, right?"

The chief stared at them, then at the dragon, then at the twins some more. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, _"_ _Gobber_ _!"_ The old smith appeared next to him after a minute. "Gobber, is that the town's training dragon?"

Gobber walked all around the Zippleback, staring at it from every angle. Its heads followed his every move, which unnerved him. "Aye, it sure _looks_ like our dragon. Th' markin's look really familiar, an' the size is about right." He glared at the twins. "How did ye find this dragon?"

"She followed us home," Tuff said impishly.

"We met her in the nest, and we're friends now," Ruff amplified.

"I see yer not a dragon fer keeps yet," Gobber went on. "I admit, that surprises me."

"Old Wrinkly told us the cure, just like you said, and we got it," Ruff told him with a trace of smugness. "We're through with being a dragon."

"So that means we can finish punishin' ye fer lettin' the trainin' dragons go?" the smith grinned.

"There may be a problem with that," Stoick told him with a touch of reluctance. "As they said, they've brought back one of the dragons they released, and they did something heroic to make up for the other one. They still need punishment for the act of letting the dragons go, but the time they've already spent in that dragon holding cell may be all the punishment they deserve now. I'll have to think about this." He pressed his hands to his temples and shook his head. "Even when you two do something _right,_ you still give me headaches!"

"That's our specialty," Ruff grinned.

"But while you're here, can we ask you something?" Tuff continued. "Can we bring our dragon back to the village with us? Not as a training dragon, but kind of like a... friend?"

" _WHAT?!_ " Stoick exploded. "I've spent my entire _life_ trying to keep the dragons away from Berk! Today, I finally succeeded... and now _you_ want to bring one in for keeps? Have you lost your minds?"

"Don't answer that," Gobber admonished them quickly.

"Sir, I don't want to be disrespectful," Astrid cut in, "but it was Hiccup and Toothless together who won the battle. Are you going to tell Hiccup that Toothless can't stay in the village with him?"

Stoick glanced over his shoulder at Toothless, who was lying outside Hiccup's tent, looking mournful. He remembered the emotional scene from just a few hours ago, when he realized that the Night Fury had risked its life to save Hiccup. The creature hadn't moved for hours. Even if he wanted to keep that dragon out of Berk, how could he do it, short of killing it?

He looked back at Astrid. The Deadly Nadder standing just behind her would tower over her if it stood at its full height, but it was bent over so it could rest its scaly chin on her shoulder. Behind her, a Gronckle was lying on its back, and he could see Fishlegs rubbing the dragon's belly so its hind leg twitched back and forth. The two heads of the Zippleback were bracketing the twins between them, producing an unnerving kind of symmetry. Off to his right, Snotlout had reached some kind of agreement with a familiar-looking Monstrous Nightmare and was trying to climb onto its neck. All around him, Vikings were hesitantly rubbing the noses of the local dragons, which were hesitantly letting them do it.

"If I allow one dragon into town, I suppose I'll have to allow more than one, won't I?" he said out loud to himself. "My dream of a village without dragons isn't going to happen, is it?" He sighed. "My ancestors are turning over in their barrows." He raised his voice again. "Astrid, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, all of you... if you can't keep your dragons out of trouble, then they can't stay in the village!" A loud Viking cheer went up all over the camp.

"So," Gobber asked the twins, "are ye gonna do anythin' different, now that things are gettin' back to normal?"

"Normal?" Tuff exclaimed, and wrapped one arm around Reprisal's head. "We've got a dragon now! 'Normal' is never going to be the same!"

"Yeah!" Ruff added. "We're going to make up a brand-new kind of 'normal,' and it'll be like nothing Berk has ever seen before!"

"Aye, there may be some truth in that," Gobber nodded. "But I'm still wantin' to know what ye're gonna do next, so I can brace myself fer it."

Ruff whispered in her brother's ear. "No!" he burst out. "The first thing I'm going to do is _not_ 'take a bath'!"


	23. Chapter 23

__**The Hideous RuffleTuffleback**__ _Chapter 23_

 _Epilogue_

It couldn't be said that Berk returned to normal after the great battle with the Red Death. As Ruff and Tuff had predicted, that battle changed everything, and Berk would never go back to the kind of "normal" it had known for the past seven generations. But they did return to something like a state of equilibrium.

There were two kinds of Vikings in the tribe now: the ones who befriended a dragon and the ones who didn't. Of the ones who did, the six teens who had ridden into battle on dragons (or _as_ dragons, in the twins' case) became the town's foremost experts on the great reptiles, and Hiccup was considered "first among equals" when it came to understanding and getting along with them. The other five settled into roles that were comfortable to them – Astrid was the warrior, Fishlegs was the fountain of information, Snotlout was the preserver of Viking tradition (that's the nice way to put it), and Ruffnut and Tuffnut... their role wasn't so easy to nail down.

They were still seen as the town's primary trouble-makers, and they did nothing to dispel that notion. If a herdsman found that someone had gone yak-tipping in his field overnight, or if someone went to his henhouse to collect eggs and found nothing but rocks, Ruff and Tuff were at the top of everyone's short list of possible perpetrators. But people treated them a bit differently, once it became known that they had undergone Dragon's Justice and survived. It wasn't respect, not really, but there was a lot less contempt aimed at them, especially when people saw the curved tooth-mark scars on each of their necks. Not many Vikings could say they took a Zippleback bite and lived. None could call themselves "dragon warriors" in the same way that the twins could.

Also, there was a slight difference in their idea of "fun," compared to the pranks they played in the past. It wasn't solely due to the fact that they had a Hideous Zippleback as a co-conspirator now, although their dragon was usually willing to go along with any scheme that didn't hurt anybody. It wasn't that they were playing different kinds of tricks now (they weren't). It was a change in style.

Hiccup was the first to pick up on it. Stoick had just given Ruff and Tuff a severe tongue-lashing, and a week's Mead Hall clean-up duty, after he'd caught them and their dragon filling the town well with Zippleback gas, dropping one of Silent Sven's sheep in, and immediately sparking the gas to see how high the sheep would fly. Hiccup pulled the twins aside and asked them, "Is there a reason you guys keep doing stuff like that?"

"You mean, aside from the fact that it's fun?" Ruff wondered.

"Isn't flying through the air on your dragon fun enough?" Hiccup wondered.

"Well..." The twins looked at each other in confusion.

"We never really thought about it," Tuff admitted.

"I guess it's just kind of a habit with us," Ruff added. "I mean, people expect us to do that kind of stuff, and we don't want to disappoint them, you know?"

"Yeah. It's like, that's our job around here," Tuff added.

"Of course, you realize this isn't helping your marriage chances?" Hiccup suggested. "You're still going to have to marry a couple of total nobodies if you don't change your style?"

"As long as she has two legs, one head, and no tails, I'll take her and be happy," Tuff replied firmly.

"If his mouth doesn't spark and his body doesn't stink, he'll be good enough for me," Ruff added.

Hiccup took on a sly look. "Did you ever want to really shock people and astonish them?"

"And _what_ them?" Tuff demanded.

"Amaze them. Leave them stunned and confused."

"Yeah!" "Yeah!"

"Then do something totally different," Hiccup suggested. "Don't destroy anything, don't break anything, don't steal anything, don't tick anybody off..."

"But where's the fun in that?" Ruff exclaimed.

"The fun comes when somebody _else_ does something stupid, and people try to blame you for it, and you smile and say, 'It wasn't us! We were on our dragon all morning!' Then you watch them running around like crazy, trying to figure out who really did it, and you –"

He was interrupted by a sharp "bang" from the direction of the well, followed by a panicked "baa- _aa_ -AA- _AA_ - _ **AA!**_ " A blackened, smoldering sheep flew through the air, leaving a smoke trail; it landed about ten feet away from them, bounced three times, looked around in confusion, and took a bite of grass.

"Now _that_ really _wasn't_ us!" Tuff burst out. "You're our witness, Hiccup – don't let your dad punish us for something we didn't even do!"

"But who _did_ it?" Hiccup asked as he headed for the well at a syncopated run. The twins followed him. When they got there, they found Revenge filling the well with green gas, and Reprisal carrying a panic-stricken sheep in her mouth, preparing to drop it down the well.

"Uhh, what are you guys doing?" Hiccup asked the dragon. Revenge and Reprisal rolled their eyes. He turned back to the twins.

"The good news is, you've given me an idea for a new sport we can play with our dragons. The bad news is, Silent Sven isn't going to like you shooting his sheep all over the island, and my dad won't like you using the town's source of drinking water as a sheep mortar. The other good news is, you've done a great job of training your dragon to be just like you. The other bad news is, you're the only ones who will think that's a good thing."

Tuff looked over Hiccup's shoulder. "And the other, _other_ bad news is, here comes Silent Sven! Run for it!" The humans scattered; the dragon took wing and made a clean getaway.

Once the twins got back together, Tuff took Ruff aside. "You know that stuff that Hiccup was saying, about living clean and not getting blamed for stuff? What do you think about that?"

Ruff thought hard. She could remember a time, not so long ago, when thinking was easy. She missed that, but being herself again was worth it. "Between us and our dragon, we're going to get blamed for everything that goes wrong anyway, so we might as well have the fun of doing it before we get blamed for it."

"Yeah, I'm with you there," her brother nodded. "What about the part where we amaze people by not breaking stuff?"

"That might be fun for a while, but I think it would get tired," she decided. "Let's stick to what we do best."

"Sounds good," Tuff nodded. "After all, if we don't do the crazy stuff, then who will? Should we try again with the sheep-shooting game?" They heard another "bang" from the direction of the well. "Hey! Our dragon is already doing it!"

"I don't know if they're trying to help us, or if they're moving in on our territory," Ruff exclaimed. "Either way, they're having fun without us!" They took off running toward the well.

Hiccup and Toothless watched from a nearby hill. "Do you know what, bud?" the boy asked his dragon friend. "They're never going to change, dragon or no dragon. And I really don't know if I could handle the two of them doing the right thing all the time. It would be too weird. Maybe they _shouldn't_ change." He hopped onto his dragon's back and they soared up into the morning sky.

As they flew over the town, Toothless had to dodge another sheep that suddenly went flying through the air from below them. Hiccup couldn't tell if the twins were responsible, or if the Zippleback had done it by themselves.

At this point, it probably didn't make any difference.

 _THE END_

 **o**

 _A/N  
With this story, I formally stake my claim to being the Chieftain of Dragon Transformation Fanfics; this is my third full-length story with that topic. The other two, "Lightning and Death Itself" and "Dimmadreki," are both about Hiccup; the former is my most popular story, with over half a million hits at the moment, and the latter has almost 43,000 hits and is #7 on my list. In this tale, I branch out a bit, and cover a possibility that I haven't seen anyone else write about. (I could be wrong.) I doubt that this story will challenge either of the other two for a place in my Top Ten, but again, I could be wrong. I wrote it strictly for fun; it wasn't one of those stories that I felt like I __had_ _to write._

 _As I wrote the ending, I wrestled with what kinds of changes the twins would see in their lives as a result of their draconic experience. I finally concluded that any changes at all would be out of character. Ruffnut and Tuffnut need to remain Ruffnut and Tuffnut – perhaps a little wiser from what they've been through, but still just as wild and crazy as ever. The main difference is that now they have a dragon who thinks that the Ruffnut/Tuffnut way of doing things is "normal" for humans, so the four of them are a wild and crazy team. Poor Stoick's blood pressure is never going to come down again.  
_

 _At some point in April 2016, this story passed the 10,000-hit mark. Thank you to all the readers who did all that reading._


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